Got to Move
by EspressoShot
Summary: Ponyboy Curtis has been stuck in a rut for a long time, and he'll do almost anything to get out. But the thing that can help him might hurt some people he loves, and he has to decide just how far he'll go to help himself.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I've been playing with this idea for a while, and I finally got up the nerve to post it. Sodapop is dead in this story. I know he's a popular guy, but Hinton said she imagined him dying in Vietnam, and that idea just kind of "works" for me. I hope it's not too much of a turn off. I am eternally grateful to S.E Hinton, the genius behind _The Outsiders_, and to Cake, the amazing band that wrote _Got to Move_. The lyrics are meant to go with the whole story and not just the chapter.

_You have always got to move.  
><em>_You're always trying to prove that  
><em>_There is something new in  
><em>_Everything you do._

He stared down at his high school diploma and wondered if it was even worth the trouble. He'd always heard that graduating high school opened doors, but he had never felt more trapped.

Ponyboy Curtis had graduated high school a week ago, and he didn't have the satisfaction of walking across the stage with everyone else. He knew it was his own fault, but it was like the final nail in his coffin. He wasn't what he used to be. He wasn't Ponyboy Curtis the varsity track runner, the AP class student, the guy who was going to the University of Oklahoma on a full scholarship. He had turned into Ponyboy Curtis, that guy who lost one too many people and burned out because of it.

After Sodapop was killed in the war, Ponyboy went into almost a trancelike state. He felt like he was sitting outside of his body, watching everything that happened. He watched himself and Darry cry for almost two straight weeks. He watched everyone go to the funeral. He watched himself go back to school and start failing assignments, and he sat idly by as he isolated himself from all his school friends. The only time when he was truly aware of himself was when he woke up from the horrible nightmares that he still couldn't remember, and those were also the times when he wished he could sit outside himself again.

He tried to get himself together and go back to normal, but he knew he had changed. He had lost all of his motivation, and he only worked hard enough at school to keep from failing classes. He knew in the back of his mind that he wouldn't be going away to college after all. He remembered how scared he'd been when he told Darry, but somehow he understood. He called the university the next day and told them that Pony wasn't going. He got enrolled in a community college, but he didn't want to go. It was so far from what he wanted, and he only agreed to stay in school because he knew Darry would have a fit if he didn't.

He couldn't bring himself to go to graduation. Everyone knew how his story had ended, and he felt like a charity case. He was too embarrassed to show his face, so he went by the school and got his diploma from the guidance counselor the day after graduation instead.

Pony was still staring down at his diploma when Darry walked into the room.

"Still can't believe you made it, huh?" he asked.

"Guess that's one way to put it," Pony replied.

"You'll get yourself together," Darry said.

"I sure as hell hope so," Pony said.

Darry hadn't taken Sodapop's death well either, but he was able regroup and move on better than Pony. He immersed himself even more in his work, and any spare moments that he had left over were devoted to taking care of his brother. They had gotten closer and he was grateful for that, but he wished Sodapop could have seen it. He knew he would never be the same, but he was as close as he could get. If anything happened to Pony, though, he wouldn't last. Darry knew that if something went wrong, he could be the only surviving member of what was once a family of five. That thought kept him awake at night, even if he was exhausted from a hard day's work.

"You doin' anything tonight?" Darry asked.

Pony snorted, "am I ever?"

"They've got a Will Rogers double feature going on down at the Admiral Twin. You wanna see if Two-Bit wants to go? We can all go together," Darry said.

Pony hesitated. He was still a sucker for movies, but he just didn't know if he was up to leaving the house that night.

"We can even go to a drive through and get some food to smuggle in if you want. C'mon, you haven't done anything fun to celebrate graduation yet," Darry said.

"I guess Two-Bit could use a break from the baby," Pony said.

Darry reached for the phone. "I'll call him right now."

XXX

Two-Bit had been pretty down since Sodapop was killed and Steve came back from Vietnam with a heroin addiction, but that night he was in a good mood, and Ponyboy was glad that he came to the movie.

"So Two-Bit, how's your kid?" Darry asked.

Two-Bit had gotten his girlfriend pregnant right before Soda shipped out. After a month of being scared shitless, he decided to do the right thing and marry her. The baby came, a little girl who they named Amy. She was only five months old, but Two-Bit was convinced that she was a genius. He loved that kid more than anything.

"She is great. Man, I don't know where she gets it from, but Kathy will sit there and read her picture books, and this kid just stares at the pages and listens to her read like it's the most interesting thing in the world. She's smart, I can tell. She'll be just like her uncle Ponyboy when she grows up. Hell, maybe she'll even skip _two_ grades."

Two-Bit laughed and Ponyboy tried his hardest not to cringe. He hoped that Two-Bit's kid wouldn't end up like him. He wouldn't have wished that for anyone.

The three friends ate the food that they had brought and watched the first picture. Pony was able to get lost in the movie like he used to, and he wasn't ready for it to be over once the credits started to roll. The screen went black, and the people who only came for the first movie started to leave.

"Ya'll ever see Steve any more?" Two-Bit asked.

Ponyboy felt his chest tighten, and Darry shook his head slowly.

"No. Not since a few weeks after he got back. Do you?" Darry asked.

"He came by the other day wanting money. I told him I didn't have any and that was the end of that. Kathy was scared. Thought he was some junkie who was gonna rob us until I told her it was just Steve," Two-Bit replied.

Darry sighed. "He's sick. Just don't know what to do to help him. He still with Evie?"

Two-Bit shook his head, and Pony noticed that the sadness had crept back into his eyes. "She left him. Couldn't take him using the drugs any more. I get why she did it, but that was the worst thing she could have done. It just pushed him further into the deep end."

Pony felt his chest tightening more, and he noticed that Darry also looked a little uneasy. Steve had turned into an almost taboo subject. It reminded all of them even more that things weren't how they used to be. The mood in the car had changed, and there was an unspoken understanding that no one wanted to sit through the second picture.

"I should probably get back to Kathy and the baby," Two-Bit said. "I can walk to my car if ya'll want to stay."

"No, we'll go," Darry replied. "It's getting late anyway."

They drove back to the Curtis's to get Two-Bit's car in silence.

XXX

"We need to do this more often. I've missed ya'll somethin' fierce," Two-Bit said.

Darry nodded, "we haven't seen enough of you lately, Two-Bit. Pony and I will come to your place sometime soon to see the baby or somethin'."

Two-Bit grinned. "Sounds good. I'll see ya'll soon."

Two-Bit got into his car and drove off. Pony felt Darry's hand on his shoulder.

"Gettin' late," Darry said. "We'd better get to bed."

Pony nodded and took out his pack of cigarettes. "You go on. I'll just be a minute."

Pony lit his cigarette, and Darry opened his mouth to speak, but Pony cut him off.

"They're no good and I'm gonna give myself cancer. I know, Dar, you've told me before."

Darry sighed and started toward the house. He wasn't in the mood to pick a fight, and Pony had been acting funny since Sodapop died. He didn't want to scare him off like he had a few years earlier. He would lose it if Pony ran away again.

Ponyboy heard the screen door slam as Darry went inside, and he took another long drag on his cigarette. Pony sank down onto the grass and stared out at the street through the chain-link fence, and for a minute, he felt like he was in jail. It was like he was looking at the outside world through a barred window and wishing he could be free. He sighed and put his cigarette out on the fence. The first things he saw once he got in the house were his high school diploma and his community college acceptance letter. His stomach turned in disgust.

_Hell, maybe I am in a prison,_ he thought as he walked toward his bedroom.

He certainly did feel trapped, and there was no easy escape in sight.

* * *

><p>Reviews of any sort would make my day. :)<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next few days, Pony felt increasingly more trapped and anxious. Darry worked during the day, and Pony was stuck at home with nothing to do but watch TV, try to concentrate hard enough to read a book, chain smoke, and think about how bleak his future had become. Darry kept telling him that the community college didn't have to be permanent. He could regroup, take some core classes, and then transfer into Oklahoma once he felt ready. But Pony didn't know if he would ever be ready, and more importantly, he didn't know if he could get a full ride again. All his hard work in high school was wasted, and it was all because of that stupid war. He had never hated anything more than he hated Vietnam. Some days he thought about going down to the park and talking with the hippies. They all hated Vietnam as much as he did, and maybe some new friends could get him out of the rut he was stuck in. He knew Darry would kill him if he started hanging around people who smoked grass and dropped acid, though, so he never went.

He knew there were other things he could do. He could try to talk to his buddies from track again. He could get a job. Hell, he could call up Two-Bit because he knew he'd be happy to hear from him. But he couldn't make himself do any of those things. And it was starting to get to him. He knew he would snap if he didn't do something soon.

XXX

"I'm getting a job," Pony said at dinner that night.

Darry looked up from the newspaper he had been reading. "I've told you a hundred times, Pony, you don't need a job. I'm making enough for the both of us."

Pony sighed. "I know that, Dar, but it's not about the money."

"Then what is it about?"

"I just need to _do_ something again. I'm going crazy just sitting around the house all day. I feel like an animal in a cage, and it's only going to get worse if I don't do something about it now."

"I just don't think it's a good idea," Darry said. "You hardly finished high school. Maybe you should just take it easy this summer. Community college will start before you know it, and you'll have something to do again."

"I'll just work part-time if that's what you want. C'mon, I can't go on like this much longer. It's taken me since October to actually get up the nerve to do something again. If I wait too long, I'll just talk myself out of it and I'll be back to square one," Pony said.

Darry sighed. "I'll think about it."

"_You'll_ think about it? _I'm_ the one who's getting a job," Pony said.

"Yes, but the last time I checked, I was still your guardian. I make the decision," Darry said.

Pony rolled his eyes and went back to eating. Darry pretended to read the paper, but he was really thinking about what Ponyboy had said. He knew that a job could be good for Ponyboy if he could handle it, and he could always quit if it got to be too much. He had noticed that Pony seemed tense when he got home from work, and he'd been smoking more than usual. Darry didn't know why Pony didn't just start hanging around Two-Bit more or try to rekindle his old high school friendships, but sometimes he didn't understand why Pony was the way he was.

Pony got up from the table and put his dishes in the sink.

"I'm going to bed," he said.

Darry looked up at the clock. "It's only eight."

"Nothin' else I can do," Pony said as he walked out of the room.

Darry sighed and got up from the table. He put his own dishes in the sink and took a beer out of the fridge. He turned on the TV and flopped down on the couch. He groaned when he saw that _Gilligan's Island_ was on. He couldn't stand that show. Every plot was the same to him, and the jokes weren't even all that funny. He debated changing the channel, but he didn't want to get up off the couch. He knew he wouldn't be paying much attention anyway. He had a lot of thinking to do.

He hated seeing his brother unhappy, and he knew that he hadn't been happy since Soda died. Darry tried as hard as he could to make community college sound good, but he knew Pony was dreading it. He also knew that once Pony got himself together, he would want to transfer into Oklahoma as soon as possible. It was a fine plan, but Darry knew that it would be hard – if not impossible – for Pony to get another full ride scholarship. If he worked, he could put the money he made toward college. He didn't know what to do. He didn't think Pony was ready for a job, but he didn't think he could handle staying at home alone for the whole summer either.

"Where are you when I need you, Sodapop?" Darry said softly.

A wave of sadness washed over him, and he missed Soda with a pain that was like a knife through his chest. Soda would have known what to do if he was there. He always knew what to do. He could get his brothers to see eye-to-eye, or at least to compromise, even if they were in the worst of fights.

The episode ended. Gilligan ruined everything at the last minute like he always did, and the crew was stuck on the island for another day. Darry got up and turned off the TV. He left the dishes in the sink and told himself that he would wash them in the morning. If Pony got to go to bed early, there was no reason why he couldn't, too.

XXX

Pony sulked all through breakfast the next morning and then watched TV while Darry got ready for work. They didn't speak until right before he left.

"Pony," Darry said as he was headed out the door.

"What?" Pony said. There was more than just a hint of irritation in his voice.

Darry smiled slightly and threw the paper at him. "For crying out loud, get off your lazy ass and get a job!"

Pony looked up at Darry, shocked. "You mean it?"

"Yep. You can start looking today if you want."

Pony was stunned. He'd been so sure that Darry wouldn't let him get a job. He didn't know what to say or do, so he just sat on the couch in silence.

"Thanks, Dar," he said softly after a long pause.

"You're welcome. I'll see you tonight, OK?" Darry said.

"Yeah, OK," Pony said.

He could hardly contain his excitement as he started looking through the job ads. He was finally gaining some momentum, and this time he wouldn't lose it. He had to prove to everyone that he wasn't just a burn out. At the very least, he had to prove it to himself.

* * *

><p>This seems like a good time to mention that I don't own <em>Gilligan's Island<em>.

Reviews of any sort would make my day!


	3. Chapter 3

Ponyboy had gotten his hopes up only to have them shattered again. He'd been looking for jobs for three weeks, and he still hadn't found anything. June was almost over, and he was getting more apathetic by the day. He told himself that he needed to keep looking, but he knew he would give up soon.

At first, his problem was that he was too selective. He'd only applied to bookstores, and he realized after a week that was a mistake. He started putting in applications at department stores, the A&P at the end of the Ribbon, the movie theater that was just a few blocks from his house, but he hadn't heard back from any of them. Everywhere he went, the staff seemed to be made entirely of fresh-faced and energetic college kids and highschoolers. He used to be like them. If things hadn't changed, he would have gotten a job in a heartbeat. But he didn't fit in those places any more. He was pale and lethargic, and he had developed a sickly-sounding cough from smoking so much. He was rapidly losing the small amount of motivation he had gotten three weeks ago, and he didn't know how much longer it would last.

Pony had been out putting in more applications, and Darry was home for his lunch break when he got back.

"How's the job hunt going?" Darry asked.

Pony flopped down on the couch. "Not so good. No where has called me yet. You need any more roofers?"

Darry laughed, "I don't think you're the type they're looking for."

Pony shrugged. He knew it was true. He opened the paper to the job ads, and his face fell when he saw that he had applied to all of them already.

"Hey, Two-Bit called a little while ago. He wants us to come over tonight if we're not busy. You wanna go?" Darry said.

"Sure," Pony said. Two-Bit knew how to put him in a good mood, and he needed someone to cheer him up and get his mind off his failing job search.

XXX

Two-Bit answered the door with his daughter in his arms.

"Well, look who's here, Amy!" he said to the baby. "It's your uncles Darry and Pony! I bet they came to do smart people things with you because God knows I can't."

The baby smiled her big, toothless smile, and Darry and Pony stepped through the door.

"She's startin' to look a lot like you," Darry said.

"Don't I know it. 'Least there's no doubt she's mine," Two-Bit said. He put the baby on the floor, and she started chewing on a plastic block with the letter "A" on it.

"Ya'll want anything to drink?" Two-Bit called from the kitchen.

Darry and Pony looked at each other and shrugged.

"We're alright," Darry said.

Two-Bit came back into the living room with a bottle of beer in his hand. He'd cut back on drinking since his kid was born, but everyone knew he'd never stop completely. Kathy was so proud of him, though, and so was his mother. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he was pretty proud of himself too. Ever since his kid was born, his only goal was to be nothing like his own father. When he stopped getting blackout drunk every night, he knew he was already better than his dad, and that meant a lot to him.

"How've ya'll been?" Two-Bit asked.

Darry shrugged. "Fine. Been working a lot. Pony's trying to get himself a job, too."

Two-Bit cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah? Too bad you're not eighteen. Ma could get you a job at the bar. She's been there so long she might as well run the place."

Pony managed a smile. "Yeah. Too bad."

Two-Bit smiled, "I could ask Kathy if they need help down at the beauty parlor."

Darry laughed and Pony wrinkled his nose at the suggestion. He'd rather be unemployed and going crazy in the house than surrounded by the girls who worked at the Cut 'n Curl all day.

Two-Bit finished off his beer and sat it on the coffee table. "You'll find somethin', I'm sure. I bet all the business owners in town are meeting up after hours and fighting over who gets to hire you. That's why it's taking so long."

Pony laughed and started to feel a little better. He was glad to be out of the house for something other than looking for jobs, and Two-Bit was in a good mood. For a minute, it was like nothing had changed.

Two-Bit's baby rolled onto her stomach, looked up at Darry, and smiled at him.

"Hi there," he said. He bent over and picked her up off the floor. Amy squealed happily and started babbling her baby talk. Two-Bit took out his pack of cigarettes and stood up.

"You mind watchin' her for a minute? Pony and I are gonna go have a smoke," Two-Bit said.

Darry nodded, "sure. Sounds like she has a lot to talk about."

Amy kept babbling as Two-Bit and Pony left the house. A faint smile was playing at his lips as he lit his cigarette.

"She's a talker," he said. "Just like her old man."

Two-Bit and Pony smoked in silence for a few minutes. Two-Bit seemed distracted, and Pony wondered if something was bothering him. He finally took a deep breath and turned toward Ponyboy.

"I've learned something these past five months, Pony. Turns out being a parent gives you psychic powers. I'm reading your mind, kid, and I know something's wrong."

Ponyboy took another drag on his cigarette. "If you're really a psychic then you know what's bugging me too."

"Don't get wise. You wanna tell me what's wrong, or do I have to beat it out of ya?" Two-Bit said.

Pony sighed. "I just feel stuck sometimes, you know? It's like ever since Soda died, I've been running as fast as I can, but I've been running in place. I thought getting a job might get me moving forward again, but no where will hire me."

"You've got college coming up," Two-Bit said.

"Yeah, community college. I should be at a real college, a university, but I don't think I can even handle the community college. Shit, I hardly finished high school. I might as well have dropped out. I'll just work a minimum wage job for the rest of my life anyway."

"Hey, don't talk like that," Two-Bit started.

"It's the truth," Pony said.

"'Just takes a while to work your way back up once you've hit rock bottom. I think we've all figured that out," Two-Bit said.

Pony nodded and ground out his cigarette. He took another one out of the pack and lit it almost automatically. He didn't even realize that he was smoking until his third puff.

"Maybe you should talk to Steve," Two-Bit said.

Pony almost swallowed his cigarette. "I don't think I heard you right. It sounded like you said I should talk to Steve."

"I know it's crazy, but it seems like you two are doing the worst. Maybe once you both realize you're not alone then you can start getting your lives back together."

Pony shook his head. How was he supposed to talk to Steve Randle of all people? They hadn't gotten along even before Steve got addicted to heroin. Now he was scarred from the war and hooked on drugs, and Pony thought he might try to kill him.

_No way,_ he thought. _No way in hell am I talking to Steve._

Two-Bit put his hand on Pony's shoulder. "Just think it over."

Pony nodded. "I will," he said, even though he knew that he'd already made up his mind.

Two-Bit tossed the last bit of his cigarette on the ground. "Good deal."

* * *

><p>I'm a bit iffy about this chapter, and I hope it wasn't too boring. Things will pick up next chapter, I promise. Reviews of any sort would be great :)<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry I took so long to update. It's finals week for my summer classes, and then my computer decided to freak out on me so it was getting fixed. I hope this chapter is worth the wait.

* * *

><p>It was just after noon on July first, and Pony had finally managed to get out of bed for the day.<p>

His sleep schedule had been out of whack for the past week. He couldn't fall asleep until the early hours of the morning, and he didn't wake up until noon or later. Darry had no idea, and Pony didn't plan on telling him unless it got worse. He didn't need anything else to worry about.

Pony lit a cigarette and flopped down on the couch. He knew smoking on an empty stomach was a bad idea, but he wasn't hungry and he was craving a cigarette something fierce. As he blew smoke rings, his mind drifted to something he'd been thinking about almost nonstop for the past week – Steve Randle.

He knew that Two-Bit thought it would be a good idea for them to talk, but Pony just couldn't convince himself that it would end well. But that didn't stop him from thinking about it, and it didn't stop him from taking long walks around the neighborhood at night just so he could go by Steve's house. He was still living with his parents, and the house looked the same as it always did. The paint was peeling in some places, the roof was in need of new shingles, and Steve's car was parked in the street in front of the house. It had been a good car at one point. It wasn't worth much, but Steve had fixed it up and it ran like it was brand new. The car had started to look worse and worse since Steve left for Vietnam, and Pony wondered if he ever drove it any more. He wondered why he didn't sell the car to get money for his heroin.

He also wondered if his parents knew about the drugs. Pony remembered how Mr. Randle would yell at Steve or rough him up sometimes because of some trivial thing. Pony thought he would have kicked him out of the house if he knew he was on heroin. His mother was another story. She was soft-spoken and shy, and sometimes she seemed almost afraid of her husband and her son. Maybe she'd say something to Steve, but she wouldn't push the issue. He guessed Steve was just keeping it a secret, but heroin had to be a hard secret to keep.

Pony lit another cigarette and inhaled deep. He'd been telling himself all week that talking with Steve was a bad idea, but he was getting desperate. He was lonely and down and going nuts in the house without Darry there. He'd tried to call Two-Bit a few times, but he never got an answer. He guessed he was always calling at Amy's naptime.

Pony put his cigarette out in the ashtray on the coffee table. Even if he did talk to Steve, what would he say? _Hey there. I know you don't like me, but you're my dead brother's best friend, and it seems like you and me aren't in the best of shape these days. Wanna talk about it?_ That was all he could come up with, and Steve would break his jaw if he said anything like that to him.

Maybe he'd just wing it. He'd show up at Steve's house and go from there. Maybe he could find someone who sold heroin, buy some, and then bring it along as a peace offering. He knew that was crazy. He'd get caught and jailed for sure, and then he'd be even more stuck than he was then.

Pony stood up from the couch and swallowed hard to keep from being sick. He didn't know if it was from smoking on an empty stomach or because he was nervous, but it didn't matter. He was going to talk to Steve Randle.

He was about to leave the house when the phone rang. He thought about just letting it ring, but his nerves got the best of him, and he decided to put off seeing Steve for just a few minutes longer.

"Hello?" Pony said.

"Yes, hello. Is this Ponyboy Curtis?" a voice on the other end of the line asked.

"Yes. Who's calling?" Pony asked.

"This is Joshua Beatty. I'm the owner of Beatty's Books. I've reviewed your application, and you seem like the kind of guy I'm looking for. I'd like to schedule an interview if you're still looking for employment."

Pony's breath caught in his chest, and he forgot how to speak for a minute.

"Yes," he stammered, "yes, I'm still looking. I'll come down for an interview any time."

"Great. How about Thursday at three o'clock?"

Pony looked up at the calendar. Thursday was the day after tomorrow. He'd have enough time to prepare.

"Yes," Pony said. "That sounds good."

"Alright. I'm looking forward to meeting you. Goodbye."

Pony murmured a quick goodbye and hung up the phone. He'd forgotten entirely about going to see Steve. He had a job interview, and that was all he needed. He was happier than he had been in months. This time things would work out. _This_ time, he wouldn't stop. He'd stay in motion no matter what it took.

XXX

"I got a job interview!" Pony said as soon as Darry came home from work.

Darry was covered in sweat and roofing tar, but he still gave Pony a hug. "That's great! Where's it at?"

"One of the bookstores. It's near the university campus," Pony said.

"Yeah? Well good, I'm glad to hear it. Do you need a ride? I can try to take off work."

Pony shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I'll walk or take a bus or something."

Darry nodded and walked off toward the bathroom for a shower. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"I will," Pony said.

Darry made a chocolate cake after dinner to celebrate, and he and Pony ate all of it and watched an old movie on TV. Darry noticed that Pony seemed less tense, and he hadn't smoked any cigarettes since he'd been home. He hoped that Pony would get the job. He was so excited about the interview, and it would kill him if they hired someone else.

The movie ended, and Darry realized it was almost midnight.

"Guess I'd better get to bed," Darry said as he stood up from the couch.

Pony nodded and turned off the TV. He sighed.

"Do you think I'll get this job, Darry?" he asked.

Darry wanted to tell him that he knew he'd get it. He would have done anything to make his brother happy. But he knew it could do more harm than good if he told Pony that he would get the job and then he didn't.

"I don't see why not," Darry replied. That was the truth. He really didn't see why Pony wouldn't get the job.

"You read more than anyone I know, you got As on almost all of your papers," Darry continued. "You were going to major in English. I don't know why they wouldn't hire you."

"You don't think I'm a failure?" Pony asked.

"What are you talking about?" Darry asked.

"I'm talking about how I almost didn't graduate high school. I'm not going to a good college any more either. Hell, maybe I won't even get this job."

"What happened? You were so excited earlier," Darry said.

Pony shrugged, "I dunno. I just started thinking, I guess."

"Pony, I'm going to tell you something I've never told you before," Darry said. "You're thinking too much."

Pony smiled slightly. "Yeah. Maybe you're right."

"I know I'm right. Now let's get to bed, I've got work in the morning."

Pony nodded and walked toward his room. He lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He hoped that Darry was right. He needed this job more than anything, and he didn't know what he'd do if he didn't get it. He wished Sodapop was there. Just his presence was usually enough to calm Pony down, and if that didn't work he would have told Pony dumb jokes or stories about the rodeo to get his mind off of things.

Pony sighed and turned over onto his side. He was suddenly exhausted.

"'Night, Sodapop," he muttered.

He realized what he'd done, but there was nothing he could do to take it back. He missed his brother worse than he had in a long time, and he didn't even try to stop himself when he started crying. He didn't know how a day that had been so good had ended so badly, but what he did know was that he cried himself to sleep for the first time since February.

* * *

><p>Couple of things. First, I know stay-at-home dads were a rarity in the '60s, but I just see Two-Bit as being one. In my mind, Kathy is the one with the good work ethic who goes out and gets a job, so Two-Bit stays at home because he doesn't want to work. Second, a Steve scene is coming, I promise. It's just not quite time yet :)<p>

Reviews are always great!


	5. Chapter 5

Thursday at two forty-five came around, and Pony was at Beatty's Books fifteen minutes early. He had thought about walking but decided against it when he realized it was almost one hundred degrees outside. He'd rode the bus instead, but he still had to walk a block from the bus stop to the bookstore. The heat outside was oppressive, and he hoped that no one would notice that sweat was starting to soak through onto his shirt.

He stepped inside the bookstore and was greeted by a rush of cold air. _God bless air conditioning,_ he thought as he started looking for an employee. The first person he found was a boy who looked about his age. He had red hair, and Pony couldn't tell if he had dark skin or if he was just covered in freckles until he got close to him. The boy looked up from the cart of books he was shelving.

"Can I help you find something?" he asked.

"I have an interview," Pony said. "With Mr. Beatty."

"Oh, thank God, he's finally getting more help," he said. He motioned for Pony to follow him and the two of them walked toward the back of the store.

"It's just been me and Leslie and Tom for as long as I can remember," the boy continued. "No, scratch that, Leslie's brother Alfred used to work here too. But he got drafted and he's in Canada now."

Pony nodded. He wasn't sure what to say.

They stopped at a door, and the boy knocked on it. He waited a few seconds and opened it.

"Hey, Josh. Got a guy who says he has an interview," he said.

"Good, send him in," the voice behind the door said.

The boy winked at Pony, and he noticed that he even had freckles on his eyelids.

"Good luck," he said before he closed the door behind Pony.

Joshua Beatty was a short, balding man, and the double-breasted suit jacket he was wearing did nothing to hide his potbelly. He reminded Pony a little of Jerry Wood, the man who had been at the church in Windrixville all those years ago. Pony quickly pushed the thought out of his head and reached out to shake his hand.

"Joshua Beatty," he said.

"I'm Ponyboy Curtis," Pony said.

They sat down on opposite sides of Joshua's desk.

"That's an unusual name, if you don't mind my saying," he said.

"No, people have been saying that my whole life. I have a brother named Sodapop, too. Er, make that _had_ a brother named Sodapop."

Joshua raised his eyebrows, "had?"

"He was killed in Vietnam," Pony said.

"I'm sorry for your loss. This war seems to be getting closer and closer to home."

Pony nodded. "It does."

Joshua cleared his throat and picked up a piece of paper. "Well, let's just jump right into this interview, shall we?"

"Sure," Pony said.

"Your resume is impressive. Track runner, good grades, and high school graduate. Any chance that you'll go off to college and we'll lose you?"

"No, sir," Pony said.

"Well, I just have one question for you. Why do you want this job?"

Pony froze. A million reasons ran through his head, and about half of them weren't something he could talk about.

"I really like books," Pony said after what he was afraid was too long of a pause. "I just think it would be nice to work around them."

Joshua nodded. "Alright. Now how about the _real_ reason you want this job."

"I'm sorry?" Pony said. He wasn't sure that he had heard him right.

"I don't doubt that you love books, Ponyboy, but certainly that's not your real reason for wanting this job. I prefer those who are honest over people who just tell me what I want to hear. Now tell me, why do you want this job? Is it about money?"

"I can tell you it has nothing to do with money," Pony said.

"Go on."

"My brother was killed in Vietnam about nine months ago, and ever since then I feel like I'm just not the person I used to be," Pony said. "I just need to do something with myself again now, or else I never will."

Joshua was silent for a few minutes. He was staring intently at Pony. It was almost like he was trying to see through to his soul. He finally smiled at him.

"Congratulations. You're hired."

Pony's jaw dropped a little. "That… that's it? I got the job just like that?"

Joshua chuckled. "Keep in mind most job interviews are more intense than this. But I'm short on help, and you're the only person I've seen who could answer my question honestly. You start on Monday."

Pony's mouth was open, but he couldn't make himself talk.

"Thank you," he finally managed to say. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," Joshua said. He stood up, shook Pony's hand one last time, and showed him to the door. "Don't forget, Monday at ten."

"I won't," Pony said. "Thanks again."

"Hey, kid," a voice said as he was headed out the door.

He turned around and saw the boy he had talked to sitting behind the counter with a girl.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

Pony nodded and smiled. "Yeah, I'll be starting Monday."

"Finally, some fresh blood!" the girl said.

Pony waked over to the counter.

"I'm Charlie," the boy said. He shook Pony's hand.

The girl waved at him. "Leslie."

"There's another guy, Tom, but he's not here today. You'll meet him on Monday, probably," Charlie said.

Pony nodded. He couldn't wait to get out of there and tell Darry that he'd gotten the job.

"What's your name?" Leslie asked.

Pony blushed a little. She was a pretty girl. She had brown hair that was cut into those blunt bangs that he'd always liked and eyes that were somewhere between gray and blue. They reminded him of a lake. He hoped that his face wasn't too red. Sometimes he got embarrassed when he had to tell people his name for the first time, especially if they were good looking girls like Leslie.

"I'm Ponyboy," he said.

"Yeah? Like _A Man Called Horse_? Is that your real name?" Charlie asked.

Pony was about to reply, but Leslie cut him off before he could. "Yes. You're that boy from the papers a few years ago. You saved some kids from a fire."

Pony nodded, "that's me."

"Well, what do you know? Looks like we'll be working with a celebrity from now on," Charlie said.

Pony shrugged. "It was nothing."

"You're still the most famous person we've ever worked with," Charlie said. "But I'm sure someone so high-profile such as yourself has places to go. We'll see you on Monday."

Pony nodded. "Yep. I'll be here."

He practically ran to the bus stop, and he couldn't sit still for the whole ride home. He couldn't wait to tell Darry and Two-Bit. He couldn't wait to start work on Monday.

He got off the bus and started toward his house. He was lost in his own thoughts and not paying much attention to what was around him. He was a block from his house when he crashed into someone and sent him sprawling.

"I'm so sorry. Are you OK?" Pony asked as he bent down to help the other person up. He looked up at Pony, and he was shocked to see who it was.

Sitting on the concrete beside Pony was a much thinner, bleary-eyed Steve Randle.

* * *

><p>Here are a few notes. First, <em>A Man Called Horse<em> is a short story by Dorothy Johnson, and I'd like to mention that I don't own it. It is a good read, though. Second, it might be more formal to refer to Joshua as Mr. Beatty, but I'm planning to write him as a really laid-back guy who doesn't mind when his employees call him by his first name.

I hope the descriptions of the OCs weren't too much of an info dump. Please feel free to call me out if they were.

Fasten your seat-belts, because here comes Steve! I hope he lives up to expectations.


	6. Chapter 6

Pony didn't know what to do. It was all he could do to keep himself from having a panic attack. Steve was there, he was_ right there_ next to him on the sidewalk.

_I don't even have any heroin to give him,_ was the first complete thought that ran through Pony's head.

Steve turned his hands palm side up and looked at them. He'd cut them on the pavement when he fell, and they were starting to bleed.

"Huh, look at that," he said. His voice was flat, monotone, and there was no emotion behind his eyes. He looked over at Pony but he didn't say anything. He just stared at him, and it gave Pony the creeps.

"Maybe you should get those hands cleaned up?" Pony said after a few minutes.

"Hands? No. What you need is clean socks. I saw a guy's foot get to where it was about to fall off. All because he didn't have clean socks. You need clean socks in the jungle."

Steve's hands were really starting to bleed, and he absently wiped them off on his jeans. It left a rusty red stain from his kneecaps to his hips, and Pony was sure that it had to hurt. Steve didn't seem to notice though. It was like his body was there, but his mind was a million miles away. Pony thought for a minute that maybe he'd left it back in Vietnam.

"Sodapop was a good guy," Steve said. "He was my best friend, you know. And then in the war everyone loved him. I think if the Cong had just gotten to know him they wouldn't have thrown that grenade at him."

Pony nodded.

"It should've been me," Steve said after a minute of silence.

"What should've been you?"

"I should've died back there. Not him," he replied. He sighed heavily. "I saw it coming. They threw a grenade and I thought to push him down and then lie on top of him so that I would die and he wouldn't. But I didn't think fast enough. He beat me to it."

Steve's voice trailed off, and he chocked back a sob. "Your brother was a real hero. He died for me."

Pony was livid. His whole life Steve Randle had hated him, and it was his fault that Soda was dead. He'd never hated him more than he did in that moment. His vision went white, and there was a deafening roar in his ears. He moved his arm back and punched Steve as hard as he could in the jaw.

Even though he used all his energy, it wasn't a hard punch. He hadn't been working out much since he stopped running track, but he knew it was enough to hurt. Steve seemed more in shock than in pain, and he started to gently rub at his jaw.

"Pony," he started.

Pony stood up and started to walk away. "You killed my brother."

"He was my brother, too," Steve said. "And so were you."

Pony slowly turned around.

"I'll never forgive myself," Steve said.

"That's how it should be," Pony said. He turned and started walking away. He knew Darry wouldn't be home from work yet, but he had to talk to someone. He turned down Sutton and started toward Two-Bit's house. He would be as eager to talk about what happened as anyone.

XXX

Two-Bit somehow didn't notice the frantic look on Pony's face and the sweat on his body when he showed up on his front porch.

"Pony!" he said. "You're just in time. Amy and I just made up a new game."

"Two-Bit, something just happened," Pony started.

Two-Bit wasn't paying attention. "I call this game 'Drag Race'. Amy loves it. Are you ready?"

"Two-Bit," Pony started again.

Two-Bit had walked to the far end of the room. He started talking in a tone of voice that was supposed to make him sound like a sportscaster.

"Start your engines," he said. He started making car noises, and Amy started giggling. Pony rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch.

"Three, two, one… Go!" Two-Bit said. He lifted Amy over his head and ran across the room with her. She squealed and laughed the whole way. He looked at her once they were done.

"You won again!" he said.

Amy smiled, and Two-Bit put her down on her blanket on the floor. He sat next to Pony on the couch.

"Something tells me you didn't come over here to play Drag Race," he said.

Pony shook his head. "I ran into Steve today."

Two-Bit's eyes widened a little. "No shit? Well what happened? What did he say?"

"I was walking home from my job interview, and I ran into him. Just crashed right into him. He scraped up his hands and everything, but he didn't seem to notice."

"But did he say anything? When he came over here a month or so ago he seemed real out of it."

Pony's stomach lurched. He suddenly lost all his confidence that he would be able to talk about Steve.

Pony sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. "He killed Sodapop," he said softly.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Two-Bit asked.

"There was a grenade, and he wanted to protect Soda from it, but he was too chicken and Soda had to save him," Pony said. "If he had just acted, then Soda would still be here."

"That has to take guts," Two-Bit said softly.

"I know. I wouldn't have been able to do it either," Pony said.

"No. I mean, what Soda did took guts too. But I was talking about Steve."

Pony raised his eyebrows, and Two-Bit continued. "It's hard enough to go on after seeing your buddy die. Hell, even Dally couldn't handle it. But knowing your buddy died to save you? Glory, no wonder he's using heroin."

"Don't you get it? It's his fault," Pony said.

"It's no one's fault, kid. Soda did what he did, and now we've all got to live with it. You can go on hating Steve until the cows come home, but it won't do no one any good. And Soda wouldn't have wanted it that way, either."

Pony lit a cigarette and took a long drag. His hand was shaking violently.

"Why'd it have to be him? Steve always hated me," Pony said.

Amy started to fuss. Two-Bit picked her up and put her in his lap. The attention seemed to calm her down, and she started chewing on a stuffed animal pig that Two-Bit handed her.

"Is that what you think? That Steve hated you?" Two-Bit asked.

"Wasn't it obvious?" Pony asked.

Two-Bit shook his head. "You've got it all wrong. I think he got jealous of you and Soda every now and then, but he never hated you."

"He said he'd always thought of me as a brother," Pony said softly.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Two-Bit replied.

Pony put his cigarette out in the ash tray and stood up. "I've gotta go."

Two-Bit nodded absently. He seemed lost in his own thoughts.

"Bye."

XXX

Pony's thoughts were racing as he walked home. Why couldn't Steve have died instead of Soda? Why did they both have to go off to that stupid war in the first place? And did it mean something that Soda had given up his life just to save Steve? Pony hated to think about it, but he was pretty sure it did.

He'd always thought that Steve hated him. He never liked it when he went places with him and Soda. He had always tried to keep him out of everything like he was some kind of kid. Even when Pony got older and occasionally had a girl of his own, Steve just didn't seem to like him. How could he possibly have thought of him as a brother?

The interview at the bookstore felt like weeks ago. He forgot that he was starting on Monday. Darry was home, and it was all Pony could do to tell him that he got the job. He pretended to be excited with Darry, but all he wanted was to be alone. He needed to think.

XXX

"Dar?"

Darry opened his eyes and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. He turned on the light beside his bed.

"Pony? Are you OK?"

Pony sniffled. "Soda saved Steve from a grenade and then he died. And I know he feels bad, but all I could do was punch him in the face. And then Two-Bit made me realize that what I did was wrong, and now I can't sleep because I'm a lousy person."

Darry's sleep-clouded mind couldn't make sense of what Pony said. He probably wouldn't have understood even if he was awake. He moved to the other side of the bed and patted the empty spot. Pony crawled into bed next to him.

"You ain't a lousy person. Now go to sleep," Darry said.

Darry was asleep again in seconds, but his presence didn't do anything to help Pony. He lay awake in bed all night, wallowing in a mixture of guilt, rage, and sadness.

* * *

><p>So there's a small dose of Steve! He'll be around more later in the story; this was just a pretty small scene. I hope I did him justice, but if he's terrible please don't hesitate to let me know. I want to make sure I have him right before I write him again.<p>

Reviews of any sort would be great! :)


	7. Chapter 7

Monday finally came around, and Pony was relieved to have something to do with himself. He had been hiding in the house since Thursday. He didn't want to talk to Two-Bit. He didn't want to run into Steve again, and he was afraid that he would decide to come by the house and try to talk to him. He could hardly even make himself talk to Darry. He just sat in his bedroom and read books and listened to the same Elvis record over and over. He knew that Darry was worried about him, and he was a little worried about himself. But the job was going to be a distraction, and he needed a distraction more than anything. He needed something to get his mind off of Steve and Sodapop and what had happened in the war. It was slowly but surely driving him nuts.

XXX

He got to the bookstore fifteen minutes early. There was no one behind the counter, but he could hear voices coming from the back room, and he started to walk toward them.

"So you're stranded on a desert island, and you can only bring one person. Who do you bring?" a voice he didn't recognize asked.

"I'd bring _you,_ Tom," Charlie said. "And then I'd eat you if you got annoying."

Everyone laughed, and Pony nervously stepped into the room. Charlie and Leslie and a boy with brown hair and eyes who he didn't recognize were all sitting around a small round table. Leslie smiled at him, and Pony felt himself blush a little.

"Tom, this is Ponyboy, the guy we told you about." Charlie said. "The celebrity."

Tom stood up and reached across the table to shake his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"You too," Pony said. He sat down in the empty chair at the table.

"We were just playing Desert Island," Charlie explained. "We always play stupid games like this in the morning while we're waiting on Josh. Every day he comes in and reads the New York Times in his office, and we aren't allowed to do anything until he's done."

"Don't see why we can't just come in later," Leslie grumbled.

Charlie shrugged, and Tom looked up at Pony.

"So you're on a desert island, and you can only bring one person. Who is it?"

Pony shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I'd bring my brother."

Tom nodded and turned to Leslie.

"The answer is still Bob Dylan. It has been ever since we started this game, and it always will be."

Tom rolled his eyes. "I get it. You like folk. Maybe just once you could bring Arlo Guthrie?"

Leslie shook her head. "No."

Joshua walked into the room with a cup of coffee in one hand and a folded copy of the New York Times in the other.

"Good morning," he said.

"'Morning," everyone responded.

"I assume you've all met Ponyboy?" he asked.

"We were just playing Desert Island with him," Charlie said.

"Well good," Joshua said. "Charlie, you're in charge of showing him the shelving system today. Leslie, you can teach him how to work the register tomorrow. And Tom, help them both if they need it. Any questions for me before we start today?"

"We've got it, Josh," Tom said.

"Alright. I'll be in my office if you need any help."

Joshua left the room, and everyone stood up from the table.

"Three hours to lunch," Leslie said as they walked out of the room. She and Tom walked up to the registers, and Charlie showed Pony to a row of shelves in the back.

"It's pretty straightforward," Charlie said. "The signs for different genres are on top of the shelves, and then you just alphabetize by author. If there's more than one book, put them in order by publishing date. Sound easy enough?"

"Yeah," Pony said.

"Good. So you shelve all of these, and I'll stand here and watch you."

Pony laughed and started putting the books on the shelf.

"So are you a student?" Charlie asked.

"Just graduated from Will Rogers. What about you?"

"Shit, you're a young 'un. We're all juniors at Tulsa. You going to college?"

Pony sighed. "I had a full ride to the University of Oklahoma, but I blew it. Going to community college now."

"I'm sorry," Charlie said.

Pony shrugged. "That makes two of us."

An awkward silence followed. Pony was sure that he was going to go crazy, but then he heard Tom and Leslie start arguing about something up front. Charlie shook his head.

"They used to date," he said. "Didn't end well. One of 'em ought to just leave, but they're too hard headed."

"Got yourself a girlfriend?" Charlie asked after a few seconds of silence crawled by.

"No. You?"

"No. I've had my eye on Leslie ever since she and Tom broke things off, but she won't have me. But that's just how things go sometimes."

Pony nodded. "She's pretty."

"Les? Yeah, no shit. She's been weird since her brother went to Canada though. It really shook her up good."

Pony put the last book on the shelf and stood up. "'Least he didn't die in the war like mine did."

"He _died_?" Charlie asked. "Why not just go to Canada?"

Pony shrugged. He'd asked himself that question over and over since Soda shipped out, but he didn't know. He guessed even Soda hadn't known. Everyone had heard of draft dodgers, but in their neighborhood, not going to the war just didn't seem like an option.

"I guess he just thought he'd make it back," Pony said.

His stomach twisted as he thought of his brother. His wild, reckless smile that could make girls fall for him in a heartbeat. The way that he could comfort him from a nightmare or make him and Darry stop fighting. Then he thought of how he had died to save Steve, and he was almost sick.

Charlie put a hand on his shoulder. "You don't look so good. Let's take a break and have a smoke, huh?"

Pony nodded. "Yeah. OK."

As Pony and Charlie walked out into the back alley for a smoke, Pony noticed that it was only noon. The day didn't end until five. He inhaled the smoke and blew out smoke rings.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Charlie said.

Pony looked up. "About what?"

"I know I hit a nerve making you talk about your brother back there. I didn't mean to," Charlie said.

Pony took a long drag on his cigarette. "It's alright."

"But if you ever do want to talk about it, y'know, I'm around."

Pony nodded and ground out his cigarette. "I'll keep that in mind."

Charlie finished his cigarette and put it out with his shoe. "Alright. Let's go back in. We've gotta check on Tom and Leslie every now and then to make sure they don't kill each other."

Pony laughed and followed Charlie into the store. He looked at the clock again and saw that they had been outside for fifteen minutes. Charlie started joking around with Tom and Leslie, and Pony got in on their conversation too. It wasn't long before he was able to put Sodapop out of his mind, and the day ended before he knew it. As he sat on the bus waiting to go home, he felt himself smiling.

_It was a good day,_ he thought. _Wait 'till I tell Darry._

* * *

><p><em>Kind of anticlimactic, but I just wanted to give a little bit more insight into life at the bookstore and characterize the OCs a bit more.<em>

_Also, my senior year in college just started, and it's not going to be easy. I'll try to update every 1-2 weeks, but updates might be a bit slower for a while._

_And I don't own the New York Times. I don't know if I need that disclaimer, but better safe than sorry._

_Reviews of any sort are great! :)_


	8. Chapter 8

"How was work?" Darry asked.

Pony thought about how good his day had been, and he suddenly felt guilty. Darry had gotten home an hour ago, and he was sore and so tired that he could hardly walk. Pony knew that it would only be a matter of time before he passed out on the couch.

"It was good," Pony said.

"What'd you do?" Darry asked.

"Learned how to shelve the books. Tomorrow they're teaching me how to work the register."

"The people there nice?" he asked.

Pony nodded, "yeah. Real nice. They're all older than me though."

"Mmm," Darry said. His eyelids were starting to droop.

Pony walked over to the couch and held his hand out to Darry.

"Let's get you to bed," Pony said.

Darry eased himself off the couch and let Pony lead him into his room. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

XXX

"If you can do basic math, then you can work a cash register!" Leslie said.

After half an hour of waiting on Josh and playing a game that they called Things in the Break Room Bingo, they were finally staring work for the day. Pony was glad to be there, but he also couldn't shake the feeling of guilt. Darry was already about to leave for work when Pony got out of bed that morning, and he could tell that he was still exhausted. He was starting to realize how unfair it was that Darry had to work so hard. He wasn't much older than Leslie, Tom, and Charlie, but he didn't get to waste the first part of his day playing games.

"So do you get it?" Leslie asked.

"Huh?" Pony replied. He had been lost in his own thoughts, and he had missed everything that Leslie told him.

"Sorry, I guess I lost you."

Leslie took a deep breath. "Ok, from the top. If you can do basic math, then you can work a cash register!"

That time what she said made sense. She was right; it was easy.

"So now what?" Pony asked once showed her that he could work the register.

"Now is the best part. We just sit here and do absolutely nothing until people come to check out."

Pony nodded, "sounds fun."

"It gets dull in a hurry, actually. But it's nice once school starts because you can study."

They were quiet for a few minutes. The radio was on and playing one of those anti-war songs. Tom was somewhere in the rows of books, singing along and horribly off-key.

"Charlie tells me you lost a brother in the war," she said softly.

Pony nodded slowly, "yeah. Not even a year ago."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Thanks."

"Mine went to Canada when he got drafted."

"Yeah, Charlie told me."

She sighed, and Pony noticed that she looked like she was about to cry.

"Sorry. I just hate myself right now. Here I am, thinking I'm bad off because he's not in the country. And then there you are, with your brother actually dead. I'm not in a bad place at all, am I?"

Pony shrugged. He didn't have the heart to tell her that she wasn't bad off. He couldn't tell her how much he envied her. "Doesn't mean you can't miss him."

"I guess you're right," she said.

"Why didn't he go to the war?" Pony asked.

"He was just out of college when he got drafted," she said. "I don't know. I guess he was just scared and he didn't want to die. He didn't think it through. One day he got his draft letter, and the next he was on his way to Canada."

She grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter and dabbed at her eyes. "I'm glad he's there. At least he's alive. But my dad was so ashamed that he told all our family friends that he died in a bus crash on the way to boot camp. He burned all the letters he sent me. He has to send them to the bookstore now so I'll actually get them."

She sighed a long, shuddering sigh. "I just miss him."

"I know," Pony said. "I miss mine too."

He blinked hard to keep the tears back. He couldn't cry. Not in public. Not in front of Leslie.

"Shit, now look what I've done. Gone and set you off," she grabbed her purse and walked out from behind the counter. "I'm taking a ten!"

The door slammed; the bells hanging from it jangling madly. Tom and Charlie appeared from the rows of books.

"What's wrong with her?" Tom asked.

"We were just talking about the war and our brothers, and then she got freaked out and left," Pony said.

"What'd I tell ya? She hasn't been right in the head sense Alfred left," Charlie said.

"Yeah, you can't just go talking to her about him. She'll flip like she just did," Tom said.

Pony shrugged. "She brought it up."

Charlie's eyes got big. "She did? She never wants to talk to us about it."

"She's crazy," Tom said. "Crazy broad."

Tom turned and went back into the rows of books. Charlie shrugged apologetically at Pony and followed Tom.

Leslie came back a few minutes later. She had two cups of coffee with her, and she sat one down in front of Pony.

"I brought you some coffee to say I'm sorry," she said.

"You don't have anything to be sorry about," he said.

He took a sip of the coffee. He couldn't stand the stuff, but he drank half the cup so Leslie would be happy. The caffeine put her in a better mood, and she spent the rest of the day flipping through a _Look_ magazine and talking to Pony about things that were totally unrelated to the war. By the end of the day, it was like nothing had happened.

"I think you're some kind of magic," Charlie said to Pony as they were leaving work.

"Huh?" Pony asked.

"Ya got Leslie talking about her brother, and I think the time she lasted until she flipped out was some kind of record. Shoot, keep this up and she'll be back to normal in no time."

"It was nothing," Pony said.

Charlie clapped him on the shoulder, "welcome aboard."

Pony and Charlie said their goodbyes, and Pony started toward his bus stop. For the second day in a row, he left work smiling. He had friends again, and he knew it was another step in the right direction.

* * *

><p>I'm iffy about this chapter. It was kind of hard to write for some reason. My muse doesn't like school, I guess. I just wanted to show some more of Pony's work, and develop his relationship with Leslie a little more. Feel free to call me out if it was terrible, and there will be more canon characters next chapter!<p>

Reviews of any sort would be great! :)

P.S., I don't own _Look_ magazine.


	9. Chapter 9

It was after ten-thirty at night, and Pony was just getting home from work for the day. Leslie had found out that it was his birthday, and then she, Tom, and Charlie had insisted on dragging him up and down the ribbon a few times and taking him to see a movie after work. It had been fun, sure, but he was exhausted and the only thing he wanted was to go to sleep.

He opened the gate and started up the walkway. It seemed like it was a million miles long, and for a second he thought about sleeping in the yard for the night. It wasn't until he was on the steps that he noticed the figure sitting in the chair on the far side of the porch.

"Forgot ya'll lock your door now," it said.

Pony sighed and sat down on the steps. He motioned for the person to come over. "What's goin' on, Two-Bit?"

Two-Bit sat down next to Pony. "You're comin' in awful late."

"People I work with found out it's my birthday and basically made me go out," Pony said.

"You have fun?" Two-Bit asked.

Pony's mind drifted back to the movie. There was almost no one in the theater with them to begin with, and when Tom and Charlie left to get more popcorn, Pony and Leslie were as good as alone.

She'd been drinking; he'd give her that. She had a flask in her purse, and she'd been hitting it pretty hard all night. He didn't think she seemed _that_ drunk though. He'd seen Two-Bit worse. So he was stunned when Leslie leaned over to him, whispered "happy birthday" in his ear, and then kissed him long and hard on the lips.

Pony turned to Two-Bit, "yeah. It was fun."

"Well good," Two-Bit said.

It was quiet for a few minutes as the two of them sat on the front porch and watched the lightning bugs. It was a nice night for July. It was cool and not too humid, and Pony normally wouldn't have minded sitting out in it. But he was tired, and the thought of going to bed was more appealing than the thought of sitting outside and enjoying the weather.

"Somethin' wrong, Two-Bit?" Pony asked.

Two-Bit shook his head. "Nope. Not with me, anyway."

"Then why ain't you home with Kathy and Amy?" Pony asked.

"Had to come tell you some gossip," he replied. "But you weren't here and Darry was already asleep, so I decided I'd wait up."

"So what is this urgent gossip?" Pony asked.

Two-Bit took his cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one. He offered one to Pony, and he gladly accepted it.

"Looks like Steve got kicked out of his house," Two-Bit said after a few puffs on his cigarette.

Pony raised his eyebrows. "What happened?"

"I had to pick Kathy up from work 'cause her car is in the shop. We drove by Steve's on the way home, and all his stuff was in the front yard and he and his dad were having some real heated argument. I swear, it looked like something from a crazy movie."

"You think his dad found out about the heroin?" Pony asked.

Two-Bit shrugged. "Don't know what else it would be. His dad's been trying to kick him out for as long as I can remember. The heroin would be a reason for him to finally go through with it."

Pony nodded. He didn't know what to say.

"You never talked to him again after you ran into him that time, did you?"

Pony shook his head. "Haven't seen him. Wouldn't have anything to say to him even if I did."

Two-Bit sighed. "Had a feelin' you'd say somethin' like that."

"Well, what else would you expect me to do? My brother is dead and it's all his fault."

Two-Bit slowly shook his head. "I just don't know how to get this into your head. Steve didn't do nothin'. It was all Sodapop. You know how much he loved all his friends, and Steve had been his best buddy for forever. What else was he supposed to do, huh? Stand there and let both of them die?"

"Dunno," Pony said softly.

"Look, kid, I know you never liked Steve, and I know you thought he didn't like you, but he's one of the only parts of the old gang that we got left."

Pony sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and the conversation was too much for him to handle. "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't even know," Two-Bit said. "Nothing, I guess. I didn't expect you to do anything. I was just hoping you'd had a change of heart. I think if any of us can bring Steve around, it's you."

Two-Bit turned and started down the walkway. "See you later."

"Bye," Pony said.

He watched Two-Bit until he disappeared around a corner. Pony sighed and took his house key out of his pocket. He knew it was late, and he knew he had to be at work in the morning, but something told him he'd be up all night thinking about Steve.

Pony started to lock the door, but then stopped himself. He decided to leave the door open that night; just in case. Someone might need a safe place to crash.

* * *

><p>I know this chapter is short, but it says everything I needed it too. I felt like adding anything more would just make it too long. But I hope the chapter was worth the wait!<p>

Reviews of any sort are greatly appreciated! :)


	10. Chapter 10

What's this? Two updates in one week? Yes, it is! I actually had some spare time this week :)

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><p>Leslie flopped down in the middle of the aisle and put a book over her face.<p>

She and Pony were shelving books that day, and it had been miserable going. She was hung over, and Pony was exhausted from his sleepless night. His mind was racing; jumping between thoughts of her and Steve. Should he try to talk to Steve? Should he ask Leslie if she remembered the kiss? Should he tell Josh that he was sick and then go home and try to sort things out?

Leslie groaned.

"You OK?" Pony asked.

"Proust makes me want to throw up even when I'm not hung over," she said. The book on her face muffled her voice, and Pony was hardly able to hear her.

He sat down next to her and took the book of her face. She covered her eyes with her hands.

"Do you remember any of last night?" Pony asked.

"Some. Why? Did I do something stupid?"

She suddenly sat up and looked intently at Pony. "Did I tell Tom that I still love him or something crazy like that? Oh, God. I shouldn't drink when I'm around him."

"No, Leslie," Pony said. He almost told her about how he kissed him, but at the last minute he decided against it. "You didn't do anything."

"Nothing?" she asked.

"Well, you did insist on paying for everyone's drinks and popcorn at the movie," Pony said.

"So _that's_ where all my money went," she said.

"You really don't remember anything?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nope." She sighed and lay back down on the floor.

"Were you drinking too? You look like hell today," she said after a few minutes.

"Gee, thanks," he said sarcastically. He went back to shelving the books.

"I'm just concerned is all," she said.

"Didn't sleep well last night," he said.

"You thinking about your brother?" she asked.

"Yeah, kind of. How'd you know?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I just know these things. I know I can't sleep sometimes because I'm thinking about how much I miss Alfred."

Pony sat down next to Leslie again. "Can I tell you a story?"

"Sure."

"My brother's best friend was in Vietnam with him. They were in the same platoon and everything. There was a grenade, and my brother died saving him from it. Now his friend is back, and he just got kicked out of his house because he's using heroin. Everyone thinks I should talk to him, but I just can't do it. My brother is dead because of him."

"That's heavy," Leslie said.

Pony leaned back against the bookshelf. "Don't I know it."

"What're you gonna do?" she asked.

He shrugged, "dunno. What do you think?"

"I think you should shelve those books while I take a nap."

Pony laughed and stood up. "That's about as good as anything."

"Pony?"

"Huh?"

She sat up. "Did I … kiss you last night?"

He froze. He could feel his cheeks getting hot, and he hoped that Leslie wouldn't notice. "Nah. You must've dreamed it."

She shrugged and lay back down on the floor. "Shame. You were pretty good at it."

He was glad that her eyes were closed. His face was so hot that he was sure it would burst into flames.

XXX

It was one in the morning when Pony heard the front door open and close. At first he thought he was imagining things because he was tired, but then he heard the unmistakable squeak of the couch springs. Someone was definitely in the house. He got out of bed and slowly crept into the living room.

Steve was sitting on the couch. He was wrapped in the quilt that Pony had left for him, but he was still shivering a little. Pony sat down next to him, but he didn't notice for almost a minute.

"Thought I'd have to sleep in my car," he said. "Thought for sure you'd be locking your door now."

"Usually do," Pony said, "but this is a special occasion."

Steve snickered. "Not every day that I get kicked out of my house for good, huh?"

Pony shook his head and took his pack of cigarettes off the table. He took one out and lit it.

"You'll be going to college soon," Steve said.

Pony shook his head. "No. I'm staying here. Going to a community college."

"Soda said you were going to Oklahoma," Steve said.

"Not anymore," Pony said flatly.

Steve picked his duffel bag up off the floor and started going through it. "Well, what happened?"

"Soda died."

Steve took a syringe and a bandanna out of his bag. Pony's eyes got huge. He knew what Steve was about to do.

"Steve!" Pony said.

"Shh," he said. He stuck the needle into his arm, right into the vein. "Don't be scared."

Pony's eyes were still wide as he watched Steve push the plunger on the syringe down. He sighed heavily once he was done.

"Why is it always us, Ponyboy?" he asked.

"Why's what always us?" he asked.

"Why do we always get all the tough breaks?"

"'Cause we're greasers, I guess."

Steve shook his head and sunk back against the couch. "Greaser or Soc don't got nothin' to do with it. That's kid stuff now. This is us against the universe. There's so much more out there than Tulsa."

"I don't get it."

"Forget it, kid. Neither do I."

Steve started to nod off, and Pony got off the couch so he'd have room to lie down.

"I thought you hated me," Steve said softly.

Pony shrugged. "I'm mad as hell at you, that's for sure."

"You're bein' awful nice for a guy who's mad as hell at me."

"Yeah, well don't get used to it. I don't even know why I'm doin' this, to be honest."

"'Cause you know Sodapop would've wanted you to," Steve said.

"Maybe. But Darry will kill me if he finds out you're here. Drugs in the house will get me sent to a boys' home."

"I'll be gone before Superman is up."

"You'd better be."

Steve didn't reply.

"Steve?" Pony asked. "You up?"

No response. Pony got up from the chair and pulled the quilt around Steve's shoulders before he left the room and went to bed for the night.

* * *

><p>Reviews are always lovely ;)<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

This chapter moves pretty fast, but I've got to move the plot forward or else this story will end up being incredibly long. I hope it doesn't feel too rushed!

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><p>"The world is no longer safe," Two-Bit said.<p>

He put Amy on the floor, and she immediately started crawling away. Pony laughed, and Two-Bit smiled a big smile. It was no secret that he was proud of her.

"Gotta keep a close eye on her now," he said. "Everything she sees goes in her mouth. I turned my back for two seconds yesterday, and she'd grabbed my lighter. Thought she would choke to death."

After a few more seconds of watching Amy, Two-Bit turned to Pony. "So why'd you ask me to come over? Something wrong?"

Pony shook his head. "Not exactly. I've been letting Steve stay here at night. He comes in real late and leaves real early. It's been about a week and a half now."

Two-Bit stared at him in disbelief.

"I make sure that I go to bed after Darry so I can leave the door unlocked," Pony continued. "He's always gone before we wake up in the morning."

"So Darry doesn't know?" Two-Bit asked.

Pony shook his head. "I don't think so. He hasn't said anything about it."

"Well, have you and Steve talked at all?"

Pony nodded. "Yeah. About the war and Sodapop, mostly. He's kind of incoherent sometimes. It's like he's not all there."

"What do you think Darry will do when he finds out?"

"I'm gonna keep him in the dark for as long as I can," Pony said. "He wouldn't want him here."

Amy crawled back to the couch and sat down at Two-Bit's feet. She looked at him intently until he picked her up.

"He's still using the heroin?" Two-Bit asked.

"Yeah. Some nights he even shoots up in our living room. Darry would flip if he knew. If the social worker finds out, I'll be sent to a boys' home for sure."

"Why the sudden change of heart?" Two-Bit asked.

Pony shrugged, "I don't know. I really don't. Because it's what Sodapop would have wanted, I guess."

"Would it be weird if I said I'm proud of you?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's too damn bad. I'm proud of you, kid."

Pony rolled his eyes. But, secretly, he was proud of himself too.

XXX

Pony finally cornered Charlie in the alley behind the bookstore.

"Something wrong?" he asked. "Did I do something?"

Charlie was normally friendly to him. They'd even hung out outside of work a few times. But for the past week he hadn't been acting like himself. At first Pony thought that he was just mad because school was starting soon. Everyone was dreading it, and it was a recurring topic of their break room conversations. But then Pony noticed that Charlie was being exceptionally cold to him. He had done something to upset him, but he didn't know what it was.

Charlie finished off the last of the Coke he'd been drinking. He threw the bottle down the alley. It hit the ground and shattered into a million little pieces. He looked up at Pony, and he noticed that he didn't look angry. He looked sad.

"I see how she looks at you," Charlie said.

"What?" Pony asked.

"Leslie," Charlie said. He lit a cigarette. "It's not like it's any big secret. I know, Tom knows, I think even Josh knows."

"What? What do you all know? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb. You know just as well as any of us that Leslie likes you."

Pony felt his eyes getting big. "She does?"

Charlie stared at him, and his expression softened a little. "You really are clueless, aren't you?"

"Guess I must be."

Charlie sunk down on the pavement, and Pony sat down next to him.

"She wants you, not me," he said. He sighed a long, shaking sigh. "Dammit." He was dangerously close to crying.

"Hey," Pony said. He tentatively put an arm around Charlie's shoulders. "It'll be OK."

"Easy for you to say," he said. "You're the one she wants."

"I'm sure it won't last," Pony said. "Shoot, Charlie, I'm almost four years younger than her. I don't even think we can legally date. My brother will need to sign a form or something."

Charlie smiled a little. "Yeah. I guess you're right."

Pony would have said anything to cheer Charlie up, but he couldn't deny the fact that what he'd said made him excited. Leslie had been haunting his dreams since his birthday, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get her out of his head. He knew he was starting to fall for her.

"Ready to go back in?" Pony asked after a few minutes.

Charlie nodded and stood up. "Thanks, man."

"Any time."

XXX

Pony sighed and slammed his book shut. He couldn't concentrate on it. All he could think about was what Charlie had said about Leslie. His thoughts were racing and running around in circles. At first he thought he was going crazy, but then he realized it was something much worse.

Darry looked up. "You OK?"

"I think I'm in love," Pony said. He realized how silly he sounded, but he didn't care.

"What?" Darry asked.

"This girl at work. We talk all the time, and she's majoring in English, and her brother ran away from the draft, and she kissed me on my birthday when she was drunk. But Charlie, this guy I work with, really likes her so I don't want to take her away from him. But today Charlie told me that she likes me. I don't even care about what he wants any more. She's all I think about and I'm really starting to fall for her."

Pony buried his face in his hands. "I just don't know what to do."

He heard Darry get out of his chair and walk into the kitchen. A minute later, he was back in the living room and dangling a beer in front of Pony's face.

"You know I'm not eighteen," Pony said.

Darry sat down next to him and opened both of the bottles. "Yeah, I know. But I let Sodapop drink every now and then when he was your age, and it seems like you could use a drink. Just don't expect this to turn into a habit.

Pony took a sip of the beer and made a face. He didn't know how anyone could stand it. But the second sip went down easier, and the third even easier.

"So you really like her, huh?" Darry asked.

Pony nodded.

Darry smiled and shook his head a little.

"What?" Pony asked.

"You're all grown up," he said.

"Don't feel like I am. If I was, then I would know what to do."

Darry put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. "I'll tell you whatever you wanna know."

Pony snorted. "Well, that's pretty much everything."

"I've got tomorrow off," Darry said. "So lucky for you, we've got all night."

Pony took another sip of his beer. It wasn't bad, but he would prefer cigarettes any day. "Good. I'm gonna need it."

* * *

><p>Feel free to call me out if Darry (or any of the other characters) are OOC. Darry is really hard for me to write, so I'm a little nervous about the last scene in this chapter.<p>

Reviews are always lovely :D


	12. Chapter 12

Pony's head was spinning as he walked from his bus stop to work. He and Darry stayed up until almost three o'clock in the morning talking about Leslie. Darry gave him good advice, and he knew he would use it, but he was still nervous. Winning her over without making Charlie mad wouldn't be easy. And even though he was preoccupied with Leslie, his thoughts kept drifting to Steve. He hadn't come by last night. Pony wasn't sure if he saw that people were up and decided to sleep somewhere else, or if something had happened to him. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was worried about him.

Leslie was sitting on the bench outside the bookstore when Pony got there. She looked up and smiled slightly at him, and he sat down next to her.

"What's goin' on?" he asked. "Why aren't you inside?"

She sighed. "Charlie has been flirting with me since I got here, and it's driving me nuts. I just needed some air before I'm stuck in there with him for seven hours."

Pony nodded, and she took a sip of her coffee. "I feel terrible about it," she said. "I know he really likes me and everything, but he's just a friend. There's nothing there, you know?"

Pony nodded. "Yeah. I do."

She smiled a little, "you always know."

Pony could feel himself starting to blush. "Huh?"

She shrugged. "It's like we're the same person sometimes."

"Well, what can I say? I am the man, I suffered, I was there," he said.

"God, I love Walt Whitman," she said.

"I've always been a Frost kind of guy."

"I can dig that," she said.

She looked at him. She was wearing sunglasses, but somehow he could tell that she was studying him. It was almost like she was trying to look into his soul.

The door opened, and both of them jumped. Tom was standing in the doorway.

"You missed a rousing game of Rolling Chair Roller Derby," he said.

Leslie stood up and brushed past Tom on her way into the store. "Somehow, I doubt it."

Tom made a face at Pony. "She's nuts."

"Charlie doesn't seem to think so," Pony said.

"Yeah, I know it. And I'll never understand why."

He and Tom sat down at the cash registers. Leslie and Charlie were already somewhere in the aisles of books. He could faintly hear their conversation from his place at the register. He could tell from Leslie's tone that she was less than enthusiastic.

"Word in the break room is that she likes you," Tom said.

Pony nodded, "that's what Charlie told me, anyway."

"You like her?"

Pony shrugged. "She's nice."

"She sure as hell was," Tom said. He sighed. "But you and Charlie are both better off staying away from her."

"What'd she do to you?"

"Nothing, really," he said. "Her brother went to Canada, and she just got weird. First she was really clingy, and then she went on this self-discovery thing and started pushing me away. Then her dad started saying stuff about Alfred that really upset her, and she got clingy again. I just couldn't take it."

"She seems fine to me," Pony said.

"She's better than she was. But she's still not like she used to be," Tom said. "I don't know if she'll ever be right again. Stuff just gets to her more than most people."

He nodded, "I can see that."

Charlie was still talking, but he couldn't hear Leslie's replies any more. He wondered if she was ignoring him. He wished that he could be shelving books with Leslie instead of sitting at the registers with Tom. He sighed, and Tom looked up at him.

"Hate this job sometimes," Tom said.

"Working the registers is dull," Pony said.

Charlie was still talking, and Leslie started responding again. She still sounded frustrated with him.

"You're blowing it, Charles," Tom said softly.

Then Leslie said loudly, "I'm going to see what's going on up front."

She came racing out from an aisle on the far left end of the store and ducked behind the counter.

"Someone save me," she said.

Tom looked at Leslie and then at Pony. He gave Pony a look that he couldn't quite read and said, "I'll go."

"God bless you, Tom," Leslie said.

Tom wordlessly walked away, and Leslie settled into her chair.

"Frost, huh?" Leslie asked.

It took Pony a minute to remember their conversation from earlier. "Whitman, huh?" he teased.

She smiled, "nothing can top _Leaves of Grass_, and you know it."

"Nothing but _Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening_, you mean."

"Ugh, it's such a mouthful."

She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Tom had turned on the radio, and the station was playing a Jefferson Airplane song. Pony had always thought they were too loud and harsh, but his opinion of that song changed that day.

_Don't you want somebody to love?_

_Don't you need somebody to love?_

Something clicked between them. They both knew. They couldn't have stopped staring at each other if their lives depended on it.

XXX

He lay awake in bed that night. His mind was still on Leslie, but it wasn't as terrifying as before. It almost felt good. This was the kind of love poets wrote about. The kind of thing he'd always wanted.

He dozed off, and when he woke up again it was four A.M. He rolled out of bed and shuffled into the living room to check on Steve.

He wasn't there, and the couch didn't look like it had been slept on. Pony felt the color drain out of his face. The euphoria he had felt all day was gone. He knew he had to find Steve and make sure that he was OK. He just hoped it wasn't already too late.

* * *

><p>Disclaimer: Several poems, poets, songs, and bands are mentioned and quoted in this chapter. I don't own them, and I am in no way affiliated with them. Bummer.<p>

This is turning out to be a bit more of a love story than I meant for it to, but the characters take on a life of their own sometimes. Let me know if it just isn't working.

Reviews are always lovely :)


	13. Chapter 13

Happy National Day on Writing, everyone! And what better way to celebrate than with a new chapter? I wrote this in about an hour and fifteen minutes, so let me know if anything seems weird. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>"Steve is gone," he said.<p>

He stopped by Two-Bit's house before he went to work. It didn't even occur to him that Two-Bit and Amy might still be asleep. He needed to tell someone about Steve.

Two-Bit stifled a yawn. "What do you mean he's gone? I thought you said that he's always gone before you and Darry wake up."

"I mean he hasn't even come over the past two nights."

Two-Bit was suddenly fully awake. "Are you sure?"

Pony nodded. "Darry and I were up real late night before last. I didn't think much of it. I just thought Steve saw that people were up and decided not to come in. But last night everything was normal again and he still didn't come by."

"Shit."

"I'm worried about him," Pony said.

"You and me both," Two-Bit said. "You got work today?"

"Yeah. I'm off at five."

"I'll take Amy out and we'll go looking for him while you're at work," Two-Bit said.

Pony nodded, "OK."

"Keep an eye out for him on your way there and back, and come see me when you're done. We'll regroup and figure out what to do."

"Sounds good." Pony stood up and headed toward the door.

"Pony."

He turned around, and for the first time that day, he could see the fear showing through on Two-Bit's face.

"Praying wouldn't hurt."

He couldn't even remember the last time Two-Bit had been to church. His stomach knotted. He had been worried about Steve before, but then he was terrified. He was hardly able to nod in agreement and open the door to leave. It was a wonder that he made it to work on time.

XXX

A huge shipment of textbooks had arrived at the bookstore, and everyone was working to get them unpacked and put on display. Tom, Charlie, and Leslie were taking turns opening the books to random pages and then reading passages in their best boring professor voices, but Pony had been quiet the whole time. Leslie finally pulled him aside to talk to him. He couldn't help but notice the angry stare they got from Charlie.

"You feeling OK?" Leslie asked.

"I'm fine," Pony lied. He wanted to tell her the truth. He needed someone other than Two-Bit to pour his heart out to.

Leslie put her hands on her hips. "I don't believe you."

"It's nothing, Leslie. Really."

"Did Charlie say something to you? Did he threaten you?"

"What? No. No one has said anything to me," he said. "Just don't worry about it."

Leslie didn't move. He knew he wasn't going to be able to get away without talking to her.

"My brother's friend," he said finally, "the one who's addicted to heroin. He's been sleeping on our couch, but he disappeared two days ago. I have no idea where he is. It's just… getting to me, I guess."

Her eyes were warm and full of concern. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No. I don't think so, anyway. I'm sure it'll all work out," he said, even though he wasn't sure at all.

She nodded. Then she looked around to make sure no one could see them, leaned in, and gave Pony a kiss.

"You liar," she said once it was over. "I _did_ kiss you on your birthday."

"You were drunk," he said. "You can't possibly remember."

"I might have been drunk, but there's no way I could forget something as good as that."

Ponyboy was sure that his heart stopped beating. It took him a good thirty seconds to come back to his senses and follow Leslie out of the aisle.

"Where'd you two go?" Charlie asked.

Pony froze, but Leslie knew what she was doing. She bent over and picked up one of the textbooks.

"Pony needed to practice his boring professor impression on someone," she said. She opened the book to a random page and handed it to Pony. He stared at the page for a minute, and then he started reading.

"As you all know, Aristotle was a student of Plato…"

His impression had Tom and Leslie in stitches by the time he was done, but Charlie didn't so much as smile. He told Josh that he wasn't feeling well during their lunch break, but everyone knew that he was just angry and he wanted to go home.

XXX

"You broke his heart, Leslie," Tom said as they were leaving work that evening.

She bit her lip. "I know. But it would have happened sooner or later."

"You couldn't have waited until later?"

"You know I'm a very impatient person."

Tom smiled at her. "Yeah, I remember."

He looked at Pony and Leslie and raised an imaginary glass. "Mazel tov."

"Thanks, Tom," Leslie said.

Leslie turned to Pony after Tom drove away. "Want me to help you look for your friend?"

He shook his head. "I think it's best if I do this alone."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

"I'll see you tomorrow, OK?" she said.

"Yeah," he said.

She gave him another quick smile before she got in her car and drove off. Pony decided to walk to Two-Bit's house instead of taking the bus. He had a lot of thinking to do, and he needed all the time he could get.

XXX

The look on Two-Bit's face was enough to let Pony know that he hadn't found Steve. Even Amy seemed worried. She was sitting perfectly still on her blanket. There were toys all around her, but she wasn't playing with any of them.

"We looked everywhere," he said. "The park, probably every alleyway and parking lot in town, Buck's, we even went to Tim's and asked if he'd seen him. It's like he just fell off the face of the Earth. You haven't seen him, have you?"

Pony shook his head. "No. Looked for him on my way to and from work, but I didn't see him."

They left Amy with Kathy when she got home and drove around town looking for Steve until almost ten o'clock. They couldn't find him, and no one they talked to had seen him. Two-Bit was close to tears when he dropped Pony off at his house.

"You keep leaving your door unlocked. I'll leave mine, too. Maybe he'll show up."

Pony nodded.

"We'll look for him again tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Pony said. "We'll keep looking until we find him."

* * *

><p>To my knowledge, the sentence that Pony reads isn't written verbatim in any textbook. It was just a random sentence about Greek philosophers. But if it is by chance in a book, I don't own it.<p>

Reviews are lovely! :D


	14. Chapter 14

The mood in the bookstore was almost unbearable the next day. Charlie hadn't said a word to anyone, but he still did a good job of showing that he was angry. He slammed the books onto the shelves and made a point of bumping into people when he walked by. Everyone was tired of it by lunch break, but Pony and Tom were too scared of upsetting him more to say anything. Leslie finally broke the silence.

"You seem upset, Charlie."

Tom bit on his lip to keep from laughing, and Charlie rolled his eyes.

"I wonder what it could possibly be, Leslie," Charlie said.

She kept playing dumb. "The war, perhaps? Or maybe there's a class you're really dreading? All I know is that you seem upset. And unless you tell us what's wrong, there's nothing anyone can do about it."

"I think you know."

"Enlighten me."

"I just don't see how you could pick _him_ over me," Charlie said. He gave Pony a look that sent chills up his spine. "I mean, what's he got that I don't."

"A vast knowledge of poetry, among other things," she said.

"That's what you want? I could learn poetry," Charlie said.

She sighed. "Charlie, you're not even an English major. There wouldn't be anything there even if you were."

"So what? At least I'm smart enough to go to a real university instead of a community college. I'll be able to give you a good life instead of keeping you in some shitty apartment."

Tom's eyes widened, Leslie looked stunned, and Pony felt like a knife had been shoved right through his heart. He was too shocked to move or even speak.

"I don't believe you," she said. "That was so uncalled for. You're such an ass."

Charlie stood up and threw his lunch bag away. "Whatever, I don't care any more. Have fun going to jail for statutory, princess."

Tom was out of his chair in a flash. He sucker punched Charlie so hard that he lost his balance and fell into the table.

"You don't talk to her like that," he said. "You don't talk to any girl like that. Do you understand?"

The door opened, and Josh was standing in the doorway.

"What's going on here?" he asked.

Charlie stood up. "What's going on is I quit."

He walked wordlessly out of the break room, and they heard the bells on the front door jingle a few seconds later.

"What just happened?" Josh asked. He noticed that Leslie's face was ashen. "Leslie, what happened? Are you OK?"

"I think I just started a mini Trojan War," she said. She stood up. "I'm sorry. I need the rest of the day off."

Josha looked at Pony and Tom once she left. "I think we all need the rest of the day off. We'll close up shop early today, but whatever this is, I expect it to be resolved by tomorrow."

Tom and Pony nodded. Josh left the room and went back to his office.

"You OK?" Tom asked.

Pony nodded. "I'm fine."

Tom sighed. "He can really be an ass when he wants to be."

"You really think he's not coming back?" Pony asked.

"I dunno. I'm gonna find him and see if I can't calm him down some. I'm hoping this will all blow over."

"You and me both."

Tom took a piece of paper off the table and scribbled something down on it. "Leslie's number," he explained as he handed it to Pony. "I know her. She'll want to hear from you."

XXX

Pony went on a walk through the park after he left work to clear his head. He didn't care if it was hot. He needed a break before he went home.

He lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He couldn't shake the feeling that what had happened was his fault. Tom told him it wasn't, and that if anyone was at fault it was a tie between Leslie and Charlie. She was the one who liked him, and Charlie was the one who got upset over it.

"Shit happens," Tom had said as they were leaving. "It'll blow over or it won't, but this stuff just happens sometimes."

But Pony knew that it was partly his fault. He could have left Leslie alone, he could have quit, he could have tried to get her to go for Charlie. But he didn't do any of that. He had to like her back, and it ruined everything.

"Pony?" a soft voice asked.

He turned around. Leslie was sitting on one of the park benches.

"Hey," he said. He sat down next to her. "You doing OK?"

She shook her head, and Pony noticed that she had been crying. "I messed everything up."

"No, Leslie, you didn't."

"I should have at least gone on a pity date with him or something," she said.

"And lead him on? That would've only made it worse. Look, it was going to happen sooner or later."

"I know," she said. "And I thought sooner would be better, but now I wish it had been later."

"Tom says he'll talk to Charlie," Pony said. "He thinks he'll be able to calm him down."

"I hope so," she said.

Pony tentatively put his arm around Leslie's shoulder, and he was pleasantly surprised when she leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"It's hot," she said after a few minutes.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Wanna go somewhere cold with me?" she asked.

"Like where?" he asked.

"Canada," she said softly.

"What?"

"Nothing. We could see a movie. _The Heart is a Lonely Hunter_ just came out."

"I've always liked Carson McCullers." he said.

"Guess that settles it," she said. "Let's go."

They stood up and started walking the two blocks to the theater. He held her hand the whole way.

XXX

The sun was still up when the movie ended, and they both squinted and blinked as they tried to get used to the brightness. He wished that they didn't have to leave. The movie was good, but cuddling with Leslie the whole time was even better. He didn't want it to end, but he knew he had to go help Two-Bit look for Steve.

"I've gotta get going, Leslie," he said.

"Already?"

He nodded. "I've gotta go look for my brother's friend. We still haven't found him."

"OK," she said. "Walk back to Beatty's with me? I'll give you a ride home."

It wasn't a far walk, but he was happy with Leslie, and he wanted to stay that way as long as he could.

XXX

Pony fell on to the couch as soon as he got home. It was midnight, and he and Two-Bit had spent the past seven hours looking for Steve. There was still no sign of him, and Two-Bit was talking about going to the police. Pony knew he wouldn't go near cops if he could avoid it. It was more serious than he ever thought it could be.

"Pony?" Darry asked.

He looked up at him. "Yeah?"

He sat down in the chair. "You're gettin' in awful late."

"I was out with Two-Bit," he said. "Lost track of time, I guess."

He sat down in the chair. "So you weren't with Leslie?"

"I was earlier. We saw a movie together."

Darry smiled. "Well, how'd it go?"

Pony shrugged. "Good I think?" He blushed a little. "She let me hold her the whole time."

"Sure as hell sounds good to me," Darry said.

"Hope so," Pony said. "Charlie flipped out at work today though. He's not too happy."

"Yeah. Told you that might happen."

"I know. But I was hoping it wouldn't. Shit, I don't know what's going to happen at work tomorrow."

"Well, good luck," Darry said. "Let me know how it goes."

"I will."

"Goodnight."

"'Night."

Pony stayed up late to see if Steve would show up. He dozed off on the couch waiting for him, and when he woke up the sun was starting to rise. Another night had gone by without Steve showing up. Pony forced himself off the couch and into his bedroom. He changed his clothes and left the house as quietly as he could. He started jogging down the block, keeping his eyes out for Steve. He hoped to God that he would find him.

* * *

><p>Carson McCullers owns <em>The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.<em> The book at least. I'm not entirely sure about the film rights, but I certainly don't own them.

Quite a bit of dialogue in this chapter, but I hope you guys like it. Reviews always make my day! :D


	15. Chapter 15

The sun was just starting to break through the clouds, and it gave the world a light pink tint. Dew covered everything, and it gave even the rustiest cars a shine like they were brand new. Pony hadn't been up at dawn since the few days that he and Johnny spent in Windrixville, and he had forgotten how pretty it could be. But although it was a beautiful morning, he was more concerned with looking for Steve.

He ran for a good half hour before he started to feel tired. He still hadn't seen Steve, but he decided to start heading home anyway. He and Two-Bit would try looking for him again that night. Pony turned onto Sutton and started toward home. He picked up speed as he neared the burned-out shell that used to be the Dingo drive-in. It had been bombed a few years ago, but no one bothered to knock down what remained of the building, and it gave Pony the creeps.

At first he thought he was seeing things when he saw the car in the parking lot, but as he got closer he knew he wasn't. When he got even closer, he was able to figure out whose car it was. He was afraid of what he would find, but he took a few deep breaths and walked up to the car. He looked in the front window and saw Steve asleep in the front seat. The door was unlocked. He opened it and started shaking Steve awake.

"Steve," he said. "Wake up."

"Huh?" Steve said. His eyes were bloodshot. "Ponyboy?"

"Yeah, it's me. Scoot over."

Steve sat up in the passenger seat, and Pony climbed in to the driver's side.

"Where the hell were you?" Pony asked. "You've been gone for four days. Two-Bit was talking about going to the cops."

Steve's head was leaned against the window, and Pony could tell that he was starting to fall asleep. "Kansas," he said sleepily.

"So you just decided to go to Kansas without telling anybody? What's there anyway?"

"Thought aunt and uncle could give me money, but parents told 'em not to."

"And that took four days?"

"Tried to stay with my cousin, but she kicked the heroin out," he said.

Steve looked even worse than before. He was even thinner and paler, and his hair looked it hadn't been washed in a week. His shirt left his arms exposed, and Pony could see the track marks on them.

"Hold on a sec. Gonna puke," Steve said.

He tried to open the door, but he wasn't fast enough. He was sick all over his clothes and the floor of his car. The keys were still in the ignition, and Pony cranked the car and shifted it into gear.

"Let's take you some place and get you cleaned up," he said.

"Fuck it, Pony, I'm dying," Steve said.

Pony slammed on the breaks. "You're _what_?"

"Almost dead," he said softly.

"Look, Steve, you ain't dying. You just need to get some rest and take a shower or somethin'."

"I took all the heroin," he said. "I had a shit ton left and I took it all. Then I drank some Jack that I stole."

Pony's face went white. "Are you serious?"

"More serious than a stroke heart attack car accident."

Pony gunned the car out of the parking lot and started toward the hospital. "What the hell, Steve? Why did you do that?"

"Dead like Sodapop," he murmured. "No one likes me."

The hospital was only a few blocks away, but Pony was still worried that they wouldn't make it. His heart was beating a mile a minute, and he could hear it pounding in his ears. Steve vomited again. He was barely conscious, and Pony was grateful that he didn't choke.

They pulled into the hospital. Pony put the car in park and ran into the emergency room entrance. There weren't many people in the waiting room because it was so early, and they all looked up at him when he burst through the door.

"My friend is in the car and he's overdosing on heroin," he yelled. "Someone help him."

Nurses with a gurney ran outside in a matter of seconds. Pony tried to make sense of what they said when they went by with Steve, but it was all medical gibberish. It might have been because he was so worried, but somehow he thought it didn't sound good.

XXX

"Hello?"

"Leslie?"

"Pony? Are you OK? It's not even eight in the morning yet."

Pony sighed and looked over to where Darry and Two-Bit were sitting. They had come to the hospital as soon as he called them without a second thought. Steve's parents still had yet to show up, even though they had been called multiple times.

"I won't be able to make it to work today," he said.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Is it Charlie? Because I talked to Tom last night and he says he's sort of OK with it now..."

"No. It's my brother's friend. We found him."

"Well, is he OK?" she asked.

He sighed again and closed his eyes tight. "I don't know. He's overdosing. We're in the hospital now."

It was quiet on her end for a few seconds, and he thought the line had disconnected. But then he heard her say, "I'm so sorry."

"Thanks."

It was quiet for another minute. "Tell Josh I won't be there?"

"Yeah, I will," she said.

He choked back a sob. "I wish you were here."

"I can come by your house after work if you want," she said. "I'm sure the hospital will kick you out eventually."

"I'd like that. I'll call you."

"OK."

The doors opened, and the Randles walked in. Mrs. Randle looked worried, but Mr. Randle looked angry. It made Pony sick to his stomach. His son could be dying, and he was just angry that he had to be up early and at the hospital.

"I've gotta go, Leslie. I'll see you later."

"OK. Bye," she said.

"Bye."

He hung up the phone and walked back to the group. Mrs. Randle was crying and muttering "my baby" over and over, Two-Bit was absently flipping his lighter open and closed, and Mr. Randle was trying to read a newspaper. Darry put his arm around Pony's shoulder.

"He'll be fine," he said.

Pony nodded. He just hoped he was right.

XXX

Seven o'clock and they finally had to leave the hospital. They had only been able to see Steve for an hour, and the rest had been spent waiting. He looked like hell, but the nurses assured them that he was conscious and resting. His parents stayed behind to talk to the doctors after everyone left. They wanted to talk about how to get him clean. Pony just hoped that they would be able to.

"Who'd you call earlier?" Darry asked once he and Pony got to the truck.

"Thought no one noticed I'd left."

"Well, I did," he said. He smiled a little. "Was it Leslie?" he teased.

"Actually, yes. She's coming over for a while," he said.

"House is a mess," Darry said.

"Sure she won't care. I can take her somewhere if you don't want us around."

"No. I want to meet her. I need something to pick me up from this shitty day," Darry said.

Pony nodded.

"Thought for sure we were gonna lose him too," Darry said softly.

Pony looked over at him, and he could see that he looked worried. That was when it hit him that Darry cared about Steve as much as him and Two-Bit. He could have told him about Steve staying over and then going missing. He sighed. He'd save that story for another day.

"Me too," Pony replied.

Leslie was sitting on the front porch waiting for them when they got there. Darry looked at Pony and cocked an eyebrow.

"She's cute."

"I know."

She smiled at them when they walked up, and she and Darry shook hands and talked for a minute before he went inside. Once it was just the two of them on the porch, Pony pulled Leslie into a tight hug. She gently ran her hands up and down his back.

"You OK?" she asked.

"Just exhausted," he replied. "They say he'll be fine."

"Good. I'm glad."

Pony pulled out of the hug and sat down on the porch. Leslie sat down next to him, and they looked up at the sky for a while. The sun had already sank below the buildings, but the clouds were still pretty shades of pink and orange.

"Leslie?"

"Huh?"

"This … Us …" he started. He wasn't sure how to finish. "What is this?"

"It's whatever you want it to be," she said.

He pulled her into another hug. She leaned against his shoulder, and he gently kissed the top of her head. Neither one of them spoke, but somehow they both knew what they were.

XXX  
>Author's Note: Sorry the formatting is weird here. The page break button wasn't working. There might be one update in November, but I'm doing NaNoWriMo, so I won't have a lot of time for this story next month. It's not going away forever, though, and updates should start with more regularity again in December. I just wanted to let everyone know that Steve is safe and sound (ish) before the story goes on hiatus.<br>Reviews always make my day! :D


	16. Chapter 16

Two-Bit came over as Pony was leaving for work the next morning. Amy was wrapped in her frilly pink blanket, and it was all Pony could do to keep from laughing.

"Amy came up with a good idea this morning," he said.

"Oh, she's talking now?" Pony asked.

"Complete sentences," Two-Bit said. "And some foreign languages, too. What have I been telling you? She's a genius."

"Right. So what's this great idea that she came up with?"

Two-Bit looked at his daughter. "You wanna tell him, or should I?"

She smiled at him and said a few words in her baby talk.

"Well, she seems a bit tongue-tied at the moment," he said. "But we're going to go see Steve in the hospital later. Nothing cheers people up like a baby."

Pony hesitated. The thought of seeing Steve in the hospital made him nervous. He didn't know what they would talk about, and every time one of his friends had been in the hospital, it ended badly.

"I've got work," he said.

"So we'll go after you're off. Or on your lunch break or somethin'."

"I don't know, Two-Bit."

"You saved his life, you know," Two-Bit said. "So you can't play the 'I don't care about him' card any more, because I know you do."

"What'll I say to him?"

"You won't have to say anything. Amy is so excited about meeting her uncle Steve that she'll do all the talking. It's either go with us or go alone. I ain't gonna' let you get out of seeing him."

"I'm off at five," Pony said.

"Good. We'll pick you up."

XXX

Even though Leslie said that he'd sort of come to terms with them as a couple, Pony was still surprised that Charlie was at work. He seemed sad, that was for sure, but at least he was there. He and Pony ended up having to work the registers together while Leslie and Tom shelved books and helped the students that came in find the textbooks that they needed. He thought it was a plan that Leslie and Tom came up with to get them to talk.

"I'm sorry about the other day," Charlie finally said.

Pony shrugged. "Don't be."

"I don't really think you're dumb."

"People have said worse things to me."

Charlie sighed. "I just hate it. I've known her since high school, and she never picks me. Other guys, then Tom, and now you. It's like she's the only thing I want, but she's always out of my reach. I can never have her."

"Story of my life," Pony said.

"I guess I should be happy that you finally have something, but I just … can't. I didn't talk to Tom for almost two weeks when he started dating her."

Pony nodded. He wasn't sure what to say to him.

"Just need to find someone else, I guess," he said.

"I wasn't trying to stab you in the back," Pony said.

"I know," Charlie said.

Pony sighed. What he said next made his heart ache more than he expected it to. "If it hurts you too much, I don't have to keep seeing her."

He was relieved when Charlie replied, "I can't make you do that."

They were quiet for a few minutes. They rang up the customers that came to the registers and tried their best to act happy.

"I'll get used to it," Charlie said. "I always do. Just forgive me if I'm a jerk every now and then?"

Pony nodded. "It's the least I can do."

XXX

The nurses were hesitant to let Steve have visitors, but after Amy smiled and cooed at them for a few minutes and Two-Bit explained that she really wanted to see her uncle Steve, they caved and let them see him. He was just barely awake, and the nurses warned them that he might be loopy because of the medicine they gave him.

But he recognized everyone immediately, and he tried his best to sit up. Two-Bit gently pushed him back down.

"You're fine," he said. "No need to get up on our account."

Amy was unfazed by the wires and tubes that seemed to be all over Steve, and she started her usual routine of smiling and babbling. Steve managed a faint smile back at her.

"You're all she's talked about today," Two-Bit joked. "She wanted to see her uncle Steve."

"Sorry she has to see me like this," he said. His voice was so soft that they could hardly hear him over the hospital equipment. "I'm sure she doesn't remember a time when I wasn't fucked up."

Two-Bit shrugged. "They say babies don't remember anything before they're two anyway."

Steve closed his eyes and nodded. "So tired."

Two-Bit was tearing up, and Pony knew that he was glad that Steve had his eyes closed.

"I know it, buddy. But you're gonna be fine."

"Wanna talk to Pony," Steve said.

Pony's eyes got huge and he shook his head vigorously. Two-Bit got out of his chair and mouthed, "just do it" at him.

"Amy and I will leave ya'll alone," he said. He and Amy were out of the room before Pony could protest.

"Still mad?" Steve asked.

Pony shrugged. "A little," he confessed after a short silence.

"Could've left me," Steve said. "Why not?"

"Saving your sorry ass has turned into something of a family tradition, I guess," Pony said. He smiled a little. "First Sodapop and now me. Hell, we might have to put you in a near-death situation once you get out of here so Darry can rescue you. We don't want him to feel left out."

Steve smiled and tried to laugh, but it turned into a coughing fit, and Pony could tell that it hurt him.

"Look, Steve," Pony said after a minute. "I didn't leave you to die because Soda wouldn't have wanted me to."

He paused and took a deep breath before he continued. "And he wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life on heroin either. He didn't die saving you so you could come back and be a junkie."

Steve closed his eyes tight, but a tear still spilled out. He quickly brushed it away. "I know. But I can't do it on my own."

"Two-Bit, Darry, and I are here," he said.

"They're sending me away, Pony," Steve said.

"Who? Where?"

"Parents are sending me somewhere in Norman to get me clean," he said. "I'm scared to death."

He looked down at Steve, and suddenly he seemed so much smaller. It wasn't the same Steve that Pony had grown up with. It wasn't the Steve he thought hated him. Pony couldn't have been mad at this pale, sick, scared boy lying in the hospital bed if he tried. At that moment, he felt nothing for him but pity.

"You're gonna be fine, Steve," he said. "I'll come visit you."

"Norman's almost two hours away."

"Community college is gonna be a joke," he said. "I'll have time."

A nurse came into the room. "I think that's enough excitement for one day," she said.

Pony nodded and stood up. "I'll see you soon."

Steve nodded. "Later, kid."

Pony walked home from the hospital instead of getting a ride with Two-Bit. There was something he needed to do, and he wanted to be alone.

XXX

He sat down on the grass and put the chocolate cupcake in front of the headstone.

"Hey there, Sodapop," he said. He took the wrapper off his own cupcake and took a bite. "What's goin' on?"

He listened to the sound of the traffic from the nearby street. He liked to think that somehow, some way, Soda was talking to him.

"Steve overdosed on heroin yesterday," he said. "I took him to the hospital, and he's gonna be OK."

"I think me and him are OK with each other now too," he said after a short pause. "Sort of, at least. I know it's what you would have wanted."

He sighed and wiped away a tear that was rolling down his face. "It ain't easy without you."

He took several slow, deep breaths to try to make himself stop crying. "But I'm gonna' watch out for Steve for you from now on," he continued. "You'd want me to, right?"

He listened hard, but all he could hear was the usual sound of traffic and trains.

"I wish you'd send me some sort of sign. I wanna know you're happy." He stood up. "Bye, Sodapop."

He had only walked a few paces when he saw the piece of paper that had been blown against the fence. When he bent down to pick it up, he realized that it was a greeting card. There was a grinning yellow cartoon horse on the front. He looked back toward Soda's grave and smiled. As far as he was concerned, that was the sign he had been looking for.

* * *

><p>I know I said I was supposed to do NaNo, which is where you write a 50,000 word novel in 1 month, but my muse just won't leave this story alone. Oh well, at least it's some writing.<p>

I'm not totally sold on the last scene where Pony goes to visit Soda's grave, so if you guys think it's dumb feel free to let me know. I promise I won't be offended.

Reviews always make my day! :)


	17. Chapter 17

"You're gonna be fine, you know," Pony said.

Steve blew his cigarette smoke out through his nose. "That's only the hundredth time you've told me that in the past two weeks."

Pony couldn't believe that two weeks had already gone by. It didn't feel like it had been two weeks since Steve overdosed, two weeks since he and Leslie started dating, and two weeks since the start of community college was two weeks away. The next day, everything was going to change. It was Pony's first day of community college, and Steve's first day at the mental institution in Norman. He hated the sound of it, _mental institution_. There were nicer places out there. Places where Steve wouldn't be surrounded by crazy people day in and day out. But Norman was state-run, so it was the only place his parents could afford.

Steve threw his cigarette on the concrete and ground it out with his shoe. "Think I have time for one more?"

Pony shrugged and looked around. The nurses had let Steve leave his room and walk around the hospital grounds the past couple of days, but they wouldn't have been thrilled if they caught him smoking.

"I don't see anyone," Pony said.

Steve took another cigarette out of the pack that Pony brought him and lit it. "Thanks for this, by the way."

"It's nothin'."

"School starts tomorrow?" Steve asked.

Pony nodded. "Yep."

"You're gonna be fine, you know," Steve said. Pony knew that he was mocking him, but it didn't seem malicious. It reminded him of how he and Sodapop used to tease each other.

"Ha ha," he said.

It was quiet for a few minutes. Steve smoked his cigarette, and Pony nervously drummed his fingers on his knee. He kept going to see Steve because he knew Soda would have wanted him to, but it got awkward sometimes. Without Two-Bit there, they ran out of things to talk about in a hurry.

"Evie came by yesterday," Steve said.

"Really?" Pony asked. He knew that they had been broken up for a while. "Well what happened?"

He shrugged. "Nothin' much. Just said she was glad I'm feelin' better and gettin' help and stuff. No heartfelt confessions of how she never stopped loving me or anything."

"Oh."

"I was just surprised she came by at all," Steve said. "She and I didn't exactly leave off on the best terms."

"You think she'll take you back?" Pony asked.

Steve finished off his cigarette and tossed it on the ground. "She said she'd think about it. I've gotta' stay clean."

Pony nodded. The clock at the church down the block chimed. It was a quarter to seven, and they only had fifteen more minutes until visiting hours were over.

"So who's the girl?" Steve asked.

Pony cocked an eyebrow. "How'd you know?"

Steve laughed. "You don't exactly hide it well. Always dressed nice, you cut your hair, and you seem more distracted than usual. I've fallen for girls too, you know."

Pony blushed and looked down at his shoes.

"She older or younger than you?"

"Older. She's almost twenty-one."

Steve whistled. "Got yourself a cougar, huh?"

"Guess so."

Steve stared off into space for a minute. "You be careful," he finally said.

Pony wasn't sure what he meant, but he still nodded and said, "I will."

Steve stood up. "Guess I'd better get back inside."

"Want me to walk up with you?"

"I'm a big boy now. I can do it myself."

"OK," Pony said.

"I'll come see you," Pony said.

"I'll be waiting."

Pony sighed. He wasn't sure what to do next. "Bye, Steve."

"I'll be seeing you, kid."

He waited until Steve walked through the doors and back into the hospital, and then watched through the windows until he disappeared around a corner. He sighed again and started walking. His stomach was churning. He hoped that Steve would get better. He hoped that community college wouldn't be all that bad. And he hoped that what he wanted to do that night would go over well.

XXX

Ponyboy and Leslie were probably the only couple in Tulsa who went to Lover's Lane to look at the stars and talk about poetry, but it didn't bother either one of them. It was quiet, it was free, and everyone else there was too busy doing their own things to notice them. They kissed some, sure, but it never got very far. Pony wouldn't have known what to do if it did.

"You excited about school tomorrow?" Leslie asked.

"Don't make me laugh," Pony said.

"You'll do great," she said. "You'll probably be the smartest person there."

"Just wish I could be somewhere else," he said.

"Don't we all?"

He put his arm around her shoulder, and she slid across the seat to be closer to him. The radio was on, but the volume was down so low that he couldn't make out the song that was playing. After a few minutes of sitting in silence and looking up at the stars, Pony finally got up the guts to say what he wanted to say.

"Leslie?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"We've been seeing each other every night for two weeks now," he said. "And I really like you. A lot."

She snuggled closer to him. "Same here."

"So I was wondering if…" his voice trailed off. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "I want us to go steady."

He opened his eyes and saw that Leslie was smiling at him. "Of course I will."

"Really?"

"Yes," she said. "Why wouldn't I?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Sometimes I just don't know what you see in me."

She kissed him softly on the cheek. "You've got an inferiority complex."

He smiled and reached into his pocket. "I don't have a class ring or anything. So I got you this."

He pulled out a silver necklace with a star charm on it. It was dark in the car, but he could still see how her eyes lit up.

"You know, because we look at the stars together," he said.

"I know. I love it."

He slipped the necklace over her head, and then pulled her into a tight hug. He kissed the top of her head, and she nuzzled and kissed his neck. And in that moment, he knew he loved her. He didn't care if it had only been two weeks, he didn't care that he had never been in love before. Somehow he just knew, and he had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from telling her. He wouldn't have been able to stand it if he scared her off.


	18. Chapter 18

It was three o'clock, and he was done with his first day of classes and on his way to the bookstore for work. He knew within five minutes of his first class starting that he would hate it. He'd already read the books that were assigned for his English class, his biology class covered concepts that he learned in junior high, and his French teacher was worse at speaking the language than he was. He wondered if it was too late to enroll in different classes, or even to transfer somewhere else. But he knew that he would get to be alone with Leslie at the bookstore after class, and that was the only thing that kept him going.

He and Leslie got there at the same time. He hugged her tight, and she gave him a long, deep kiss. She was wearing the necklace that he gave her.

"How was it?" she asked.

"God, Leslie, it was awful," he said.

"Come inside," she said. "You can tell me all about it."

Tom and Charlie were still there, but they were getting ready to leave and go to their classes. Pony couldn't wait for them to leave so he and Leslie could be alone.

"I've got Price for chemistry, Leslie," Charlie said. "Headed there now."

"Aww, Charlie," she said. She gave him a hug. "I'm so sorry!"

"Thanks," Charlie said. He held on to her for a bit too long, and Pony's stomach tightened. He couldn't decide what he was feeling. Anger? Jealousy? Fear that she would leave him? Whatever it was, he was relieved when she pulled out of the hug.

"You kids behave yourselves!" Tom yelled over his shoulder as he and Charlie walked out. Leslie laughed, and Pony blushed.

She gave him another kiss once Tom and Charlie were out of sight, and she held his hand as they walked up to the registers.

"So what happened?" she asked.

He sighed. "I don't know where to start."

"Well, how about with your first class?" she said with a smile.

"French. The teacher has the thickest Texas accent I've ever heard in my life. I think she's worse at it than I am, and I was the worst one in my class in high school."

"Then what?"

"English. Would you like to hear the reading list?"

"Absolutely."

"We're reading _The Red Badge of Courage_, _The Scarlet Letter_, _Tom Sawyer_, and _Huckleberry Finn_."

"That's _all_?" she asked.

He nodded. "I read all of them before my junior year in high school, too. And then I had biology, and it's even more of a joke class than English."

"At least you only have to go three days a week," she said.

He sighed. "It's three days too many."

"C'mon, Pony. I'm trying to cheer you up. What can I do to make you feel better?"

He shrugged and then smiled at her. "Another kiss would be a good start."

"I think that can be arranged," she said.

She looked around to make sure that no one could see them and then leaned in to kiss him. Her mouth tasted like coffee, and he was sure his own mouth tasted like cigarettes, but he didn't care. His bad mood had melted away, and he didn't want the kiss to stop.

"Better?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. A lot better."

"Good." She bent over and pulled a huge book out of her tote bag. "Want me to read you some Shakespeare?"

"Only if it's not _Romeo and Juliet_," he said.

"Oh, good. I'm glad you hate it as much as I do," she said as she started flipping through the book. "We're reading _Othello_."

"Sounds good," he replied.

Leslie started reading in a terrible fake English accent, and Pony could hardly concentrate on the story because he was laughing so hard. Even after she started speaking normally, he still couldn't pay attention. His mind was wandering. He knew that he was falling hard for her.

XXX

"How was it?" Darry asked as soon as he walked through the door.

"Terrible. I'm dropping out and running away to join the circus," Pony said. He flopped down onto the couch and lit a cigarette.

"Couldn't have been that bad," Darry said.

"It's worse than high school, Dar. I've already learned everything they're going to teach me."

"Well, then you'll get straight As and Oklahoma will accept you again without a problem."

He shrugged. "I guess."

He watched the tip of his cigarette turn into ashes. His mind wasn't even on school any more. He had more important things to think about.

"Somethin' on your mind, Pone?" Darry asked.

Pony sighed and flicked the ash off his cigarette. "When can I tell her I love her?"

"Whenever you do start to love her. There's not a waiting period, Pony."

"But I love her now."

"Well, in that case, there is a waiting period."

Pony put his cigarette out in the ashtray and lay down on the couch. Darry was giving him a look that he couldn't read, and he wished that he would just say something. The silence was driving him nuts.

"Look, Pony, you don't love her. Not yet."

"But I _do_," Pony protested. "I know what I'm feeling, Dar."

Darry smiled at him. The look in his eyes was almost sympathetic.

"What?" Pony asked.

"You and Sodapop are just alike sometimes. He got this way with ever girl he met."

Pony nodded and closed his eyes tight. He tried as hard as he could to keep from crying. Little did he know, Darry was doing the same thing.

"Maybe you should let her tell you first," Darry said after a few minutes of silence.

Pony opened his eyes. "Is that allowed? Can girls do that?"

Darry laughed, and Pony rolled his eyes at him. "I was being serious, you know."

Darry took a few deep breaths to make himself stop laughing. "That's why it was funny."

Pony sighed. "So when can I tell her?"

He shrugged. "You're the only one who can decide that. Just wait a couple weeks, OK?"

Pony nodded. "Yeah, OK."

He stayed up and watched TV for a while after Darry went to bed. He couldn't get his mind off of Leslie. He knew that Darry was right, but he also didn't think he could wait two weeks to tell her that he loved her. He sighed hard, turned off the TV, and headed toward his bedroom. He lay down and stared at the wall on the far side of the room. And for the first time in a while, he noticed how big and empty the bed was. He closed his eyes. He was glad that he had Darry to talk to, but it didn't stop him from wishing that Sodapop was still there.

* * *

><p>Well, another update when I should be writing my NaNo story. My muse really wants me to work on this story. Maybe I'll just end up with 50,000 total words of writing this month. That counts, right? ;)<p>

Reviews always make my day! :D


	19. Chapter 19

It had been three weeks since community college started, and he felt like time had stopped. He could have sworn that the lectures were the same every day that he went to class, and he was getting fed up with people asking obvious questions. One day he skipped his classes and sat in on one of Leslie's English lectures with her. It was in a big room, so the teacher didn't notice that he wasn't supposed to be there. But he knew deep down that he really was supposed to be there. A big university that assigned difficult books was where he belonged, and getting to experience it made classes at the community college even worse. He knew what he was missing out on, and he couldn't stop thinking about it.

He also knew that Leslie was starting to worry, and it was killing him. He had been moody and distant for a while, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make himself stop. She would try to start a make out session in the break room, or in her car at the drive-in, but he always pushed her away not long after it started. He felt worse than he did at the start of the summer, and he was terrified that things would only get worse.

XXX

"Do you still want this, Ponyboy?"

They had been at Lover's Lane for half an hour, and they hadn't spoken. They hadn't even kissed. They just sat on opposite sides of the front seat in an awkward silence.

He looked down at his shoes and bit his lip. He didn't know how to tell her.

"I asked you a question, Pony," Leslie said. She sounded angrier this time.

He looked at her right in the eyes. "This is the only thing I want." His voice cracked on the last word, and tears started to blur his vision.

Leslie's hard stare softened. "What's wrong? Come here."

He slid across the seat and buried his face in her neck. She held him tight and kissed the top of his head a few times.

"I'm just so unhappy," he said. "I hate that stupid community college, I don't like any of the other students, and the teachers are even worse. And I know you thought taking me to your class would make me happy, but it just made me realize even more how much mine sucks."

"What else?"

He sighed. "And fall is just hard for me to begin with. Everyone died in the fall. Some good friends of mine died almost three years ago, and then my brother will have been dead for a year this October." He sighed again and tried to compose himself. "And it's just cold and dark and … hard, you know? Being at a school I hate is just the icing on the cake."

"I know," she said softly. He knew she didn't, but it still made him happy that she was trying.

"I'm here for you, you know that," she said.

"I know."

They were quiet for a while, and they held each other and listened to the radio. Neither one of them tried to make a move. Just cuddling was enough for them.

"Les?" he asked.

"Huh?"

He took a deep breath. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"Really?" he asked.

She giggled. "Would I lie to you?"

"God, I hope not. Not about this."

XXX

They pulled up to his house a few minutes before midnight. He was still in a daze, and he wondered if Darry would notice.

"Think I corrupted you enough for one night?" she asked.

He smiled as his mind drifted back to Lover's Lane. "I think second base is sufficient corruption."

She laughed, and that snapped him out of the fog that he had been in. He blushed.

"I'm sorry if I was ... y'know … bad," he said. "I've never done this before."

"I can assure you, you were wonderful," she whispered in his ear. His blush deepened, but he was also undeniably happy.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he said.

"Damn right you will," she teased.

He leaned in for one last kiss. "'Love you."

"'Love you too."

She waited until he was inside the gate before she drove off. Darry was already in bed, and he was a little sad that he didn't have anyone to talk about his date with. There really wasn't much that he could tell Darry about, though. He sighed contentedly and headed toward his room. He was suddenly exhausted. He flopped down on the bed and fell asleep with a big smile on his face.

XXX

"I think we should go see Steve," Pony said.

Two-Bit cocked an eyebrow. "Don't you have school or work or somethin'?"

"They've only got visiting hours on Saturday, so school ain't a problem. And I can ask off work."

Amy crawled over to them, and Two-Bit picked her up off the floor. "What're we supposed to do with this one, huh?"

Amy smiled and babbled at him, and Two-Bit smiled back.

"Well, I know you can do your quantum astro-physics by yourself, baby. But someone's gotta be here to feed and change you. And Saturday is momma's busiest day at work."

Pony rolled his eyes. "If I find you a sitter, will you go with me?"

"Guess I can't say no to that," Two-Bit said. "Darry want in on this?"

"I haven't asked, but I think he'll have to work."

"Ask him anyway. Wouldn't want Superman to feel left out, would we?"

Pony shrugged. "Guess not."

Amy started to fuss, and Two-Bit started bouncing her on his knees. "You find someone to watch her, and I'll go with you whether Darry comes or not."

Pony nodded and stood up. "OK."

"But it can't be some evil genius who takes advantage of her intelligence and tries to use it to take over the world," Two-Bit said with a grin.

Pony rolled his eyes again. "You've been watching too much TV."

XXX

Leslie was waiting for him at the coffee shop. He gently brushed his lips against hers and sat down across from her in the booth.

"Do you like kids?" he asked.

"Isn't it a bit early to start planning our family?"

He smiled. "Probably. But it's not about that. I need a favor."

* * *

><p>Happy early Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it! I hope you all have a good holiday.<p>

Reviews always make my day! :D


	20. Chapter 20

He breathed a sigh of relief when they pulled into the parking spot. He had a million different worries that day, and he was glad that at least one of them could be off his mind. Two-Bit had done some work on his car before they left, but it was still far from reliable, and the unnerving rattling sound under the hood didn't make him feel any better. He just hoped that it would be able to make the trip back to Tulsa.

"Ya ready?" Two-Bit asked.

Pony shrugged. "As ready as I will be, I guess."

Two-Bit grabbed the paper grocery sack with Steve's presents in it out of the back seat, and he and Pony started toward the doors. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He didn't know what to expect, and he was terrified.

They signed in at the front desk, and one of the nurses led them to a room with several couches and chairs and told them that she would be back with Steve in a few minutes.

"This place is creepy, huh?" Two-Bit said as he looked around at the few other people who were in the room.

Pony nodded. He had been thinking the same thing himself. The place was too clean, the walls were too bright a shade of white, and nurses seemed to be hovering everywhere.

"Golly, seems like a guy could get _worse _in a place like this," Two-Bit said.

Pony was about to agree with him, but before he could a hand clapped down on his shoulder. He jumped and turned around to see that Steve was next to them on the couch.

"Hey, buddy!" Two-Bit yelled. He jumped up and gave Steve a bear hug. The nurses glared at him, but he didn't notice.

All that Pony could do was sit in a stunned silence. It had only been three weeks, but Steve already looked better. He hardly recognized him. It was hard for him to remember a time when he wasn't pale and sickly with his hair unwashed and his clothes disheveled and dirty. This guy sitting next to him was the old Steve. Suddenly, he could see how his brother had picked him as a best friend.

"How ya doin', Pony?" Steve asked once Two-Bit finally let him out of the hug. "You still seein' the cougar?"

Pony nodded. "Been a whole month now."

"Well, good for you."

Two-Bit lit a cigarette and handed one to Steve and one to Pony.

"So what do they _do_ to you in here?" Two-Bit asked. "This place is creepy."

Steve took a long drag on his cigarette. "All sorts of weird experiments. Hang you upside-down from the ceiling for hours on end, Chinese water torture, the works."

"Really? You're joking, right?"

"'Course I'm joking, Two-Bit." He took another puff on his cigarette. He smiled. "Messing with you is just too easy sometimes."

He took a few more drags on his cigarette. "They don't do anything here, really. I take a pill every day, and it makes me quit jonesing for the heroin. The doctors say that they'll get me off the pills eventually and then I'll be good to go, but I just don't know. Think I'll get addicted to them and then I'll be back to square one."

Steve ground out his cigarette, and Two-Bit offered him another. He took it and lit it. "I talk to a shrink too," he said. "He just asks me stuff about the war, mostly. He's tryin' to make me quit feeling guilty about what happened with Soda, but that ain't gonna' happen any time soon."

He sighed. "And that's about it. We get to watch TV every night, there's a nurse who's kind of sweet on me and sometimes we play cards. It's really dull. Ya'll are the first visitors I've had."

"Your parents haven't come down?" Pony asked.

Steve laughed, but Pony could see some pain behind his eyes. "You really think my dad wants to come see me? He's probably just glad I'm out of his hair for a while."

No one knew how to respond, and an awkward silence followed. Pony started thinking about how things used to be. He remembered a time when he never thought he'd live to see the day where he felt sorry for Steve Randle. But as he sat there with them in the mental institution, obviously glad to have visitors but not knowing what to say to them, Pony felt a pang of sadness for him. Three weeks was a long time to go without seeing a familiar, friendly face. He decided that it didn't matter if Two-Bit came with him or not. He would find a way to come to Norman more often.

They made small talk about what was going on in Tulsa for the rest of the visiting hours and gave Steve the presents that they had brought for him. It wasn't much, just cigarettes and some candy that they bought at a gas station on the outskirts of town, but Steve still seemed happy to get them. And although their conversations hadn't been very interesting, he still seemed sad to see them go.

"Tell Darry hi for me," he said.

Pony nodded. "I will. We'll come back soon, OK?"

"Sounds good. I'll be waiting."

XXX

They got back to Tulsa just as the sun was setting, and Pony tried to hide his amazement that Two-Bit's car had been able to make it to Norman and back.

"Feel bad leaving him there all alone," Two-Bit said. "Maybe we ought to go down there during the night and try to break him out."

Pony laughed. Think that could get us in jail. How about we just go see him again in a week or two?"

Two-Bit smiled and nodded. "That's probably a better plan."

Leslie was sitting on the floor and playing with Amy when they walked through the door. Amy looked up and smiled from ear to ear when she saw her dad.

"Hi baby," he said. She started crawling toward him, and he bent down to pick her up. "Did you miss me? I hope you were good for Leslie."

"She was on her best behavior," she said. "We played with blocks, and then I read to her from the novel we're reading in class. She had some very insightful ideas about the symbolism."

Two-Bit laughed. "Thanks for watchin' her."

"It was no problem. We had fun," she said. She turned to Pony and squeezed his hand. "Want me to take you home?"

He nodded. "I'll see you later, Two-Bit."

"'Later, Pony."

XXX

He wasn't quite ready to go home, and Leslie didn't need any persuading to stay out with him. A movie that they had both already seen was playing at the drive-in, so they were both only halfway paying attention to it.

"So how was he?" Leslie asked after a few minutes.

"He looks a hell of a lot better," Pony said. "I think he's lonely, though. Said we were the first visitors he'd had."

"So sad."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"So you'll go see him again?"

"Soon as I can."

She gave his hand a squeeze. "He's lucky to have a friend like you."

He tilted her chin up and kissed her. "And I'm lucky to have a girl like _you_. Can't believe you've put up with me for a whole month."

She giggled. "What can I say? Every girl wants a pony."

She laughed, and he rolled his eyes at her bad joke. After a few minutes of silence, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. He held her tight for the rest of the movie.

* * *

><p>Sorry for the long wait. Finals really sucked the life out of me and my muse.<p>

This chapter was really hard to write for some reason, and I'm worried it feels forced. Let me know if something doesn't feel right.

Reviews always make my day! :D


	21. Chapter 21

September thirty-first was a Monday, and Ponyboy skipped his classes in favor of putting in some extra time at the bookstore. He was in no mood to learn, and hanging out with Tom and Charlie sounded infinitely better than being stuck in lectures for three hours. Luckily for him, Tom and Charlie weren't in the mood to work, and they spent the morning playing games, talking about politics, and going on coffee and pastry runs to the café down the street. Pony was happy that Josh was holed up in his office and totally oblivious to the lack of work that was being done. He needed a distraction. He couldn't think about tomorrow.

Leslie walked through the door right as Tom and Charlie were leaving for their classes. Ponyboy was sitting at the register, but he saw Charlie hand Leslie a piece of paper. She looked at it for a second, and then quickly put it in her purse.

"How was school?" she asked as she sat down next to him.

"Didn't go," he said.

She smirked. "Rebelious, are we?"

He shrugged. "Just didn't feel like it."

She started nervously drumming her fingers on the counter. "Well, did you get a lot done here?"

"No. Just goofed off with Tom and Charlie. We only had about three customers this morning."

She nodded. The tension between them could have been cut with a knife.

"How was your day?" he finally asked.

"I analyzed some literature. Read Dickinson and wanted to cry. Came here."

"And got a secret note from Charlie," Pony added.

Leslie looked down at her shoes and blushed.

"What's it say?"

"It's nothing, Pony."

"Is he hitting on you again?" he asked. Charlie had kept his distance since Pony and Leslie started going steady, but he was always worried that Charlie would try something again.

"No. It's nothing. Just let it go, OK?"

"No. I won't just let it go, Leslie. You know that I lost my brother a year ago tomorrow, and I'll be damned if I lose you too," he said. His tone was harsher than he meant for it to be, and he could see hurt in Leslie's eyes.

She reached in her purse and took the piece of paper out of the bag. "That's why I didn't want to fucking show you this. Have it your way. I tried to save you."

She put the paper down in front of him and stormed out from behind the counter. He heard the break room door open and close a few seconds later. He sighed and looked down at the paper. It was an envelope. He turned it over and looked at the return address. He sighed heavily and started toward the break room.

Leslie looked up at him when he walked in. He sat down next to her.

"You could've told me," he said.

"I didn't want to rub it in," she said.

He bit his lip. "It's not like it's any big secret that your brother is alive and mine isn't. I think I'm used to it by now."

She sighed. "It's just such bad timing. I get a letter from Alfred today, and Sodapop died a year ago tomorrow. I know it's not easy for you. Anniversaries are hard."

He didn't respond. He just put an arm around her shoulder.

"I shouldn't have tried to keep it from you. God, I'm stupid," Leslie said. She was starting to cry.

He hugged her tight. "Hey, don't talk like that."

But she kept crying. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. Pony hated seeing girls crying, and this was even worse because it was Leslie. Finally, he did the only logical thing he could think of.

"I celebrate myself and sing myself," he started. "And what I shall assume, you shall assume. For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. Um … something else poetic."

Leslie laughed a little. "I loafe and invite my soul. I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass."

She sniffled and wiped her eyes. "It's your turn."

"That's all I know."

"You need to brush up on your Whitman."

He smiled. "I think you just need to learn how to like Frost."

She smiled back at him. "You and your Frost."

They sat together for a while longer. He kept his arm around her shoulders, and she sniffled every few minutes. He could feel the tension between them lifting.

"Leslie," he said.

"Everything is forgiven," she said.

He gave her shoulders a squeeze. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Their tender moment was broken by someone in the store yelling, "Hey! Anyone work here?"

"Shit," Leslie said. She and Pony jumped up and ran into the store. Leslie got to the register first and apologized profusely to the customer. She and Pony worked hard for the rest of the day. They didn't want Josh to know they had been slacking off.

XXX

She drove him home after work, and they sat in her car in front of his house for a minute.

"So, tomorrow," Leslie said.

"Tomorrow," Pony repeated. He could already feel the dull ache starting up in his chest.

"I guess you won't be at work?" she said.

He nodded. "Josh already said I can have the day off."

"Want me to come over? Or would it be best if I left you and Darry alone?"

"If I know Darry, he'll be working tomorrow," Pony said. "He's not the kind to wallow. He just works as hard as he can so he doesn't have to deal with it."

"I've gotta be at Beatty's at three, but I can skip my classes and spend the morning with you," she said.

"I can't make you skip class for me," he said. But he really wished that she would.

"You need me more than dead poets," she said. "I'll be here whenever you want me. And I'll bring as much chocolate and tissues as you need."

He hugged her. "Be here at nine?"

"Sure thing."

She drove off, and Pony started up the walkway toward the house. Somehow, it seemed longer than usual. The house even seemed darker than it normally did, and the streetlight on the corner was out. It was like everything around him knew what tomorrow would bring.

XXX

The sound of his own screams woke him up. He sat up, and he could hear Darry's footsteps pounding toward his room.

"Pony! Ponyboy!" Darry said. The door opened and slammed into the wall. Before Pony could process what was happening, Darry was on the bed and had his arms tight around him.

"Pony, are you OK?" Darry asked. There was fear in his voice.

It was like Ponyboy had been inside a bubble, and at that moment, it popped. He started trembling and sobbing uncontrollably.

"Oh God, Darry," Pony sobbed. "Oh God."

Darry picked Pony up and carried him to his room. He put his crying, shaking brother on the bed and pulled the covers around him before he crawled into bed next to him.

"You're alright, Pony," Darry soothed. He started rubbing his back. "Shh. Take it easy. It was just a dream."

Pony gasped for air and tried to stop crying. He couldn't remember the dream, but he was still terrified. It was just as bad as the dreams he had right after Sodapop died, and maybe even worse.

The terror eventually subsided, and his crying was reduced to a few sniffles. He rolled over and looked at Darry.

"There ya' go," he said softly. "Can I get you anything?"

Pony shook his head. "I don't wanna' sleep alone tonight."

Darry turned off the light and put an arm around Pony. "No one's askin' you to."

Darry's breathing was light and regular after a few minutes, and Pony felt safe and warm next to his brother. He closed his eyes and let himself drift.

* * *

><p>I really, really wish I owned a first edition of <em>Song of Myself<em>, but I don't. All credit goes to the poetic genius that is Walt Whitman.

I wrote this from midnight - 1 AM, and I'm also taking cold medicine, so let me know if anything seems weird. Reviews are always greatly appreciated! :D


	22. Chapter 22

Even though he knew that Leslie was coming over, Darry wasn't too keen on leaving Ponyboy alone at the house while he went to work. He had been worried about him to begin with, and the nightmare only made it worse. As he looked at his brother, who hadn't touched his breakfast and was lying under a blanket on the couch, he couldn't help feeling guilty.

"You're sure you'll be OK?" Darry asked. He had asked Ponyboy that same question multiple times that morning, but he wanted to be sure.

Pony nodded. "I'll be ok." But the pain in his eyes didn't help Darry's uneasiness.

He sighed. "I should stay. I'll go call in sick right now."

"No, Darry," Pony said. "I know you want to go and get your mind off of things. Leslie is coming over soon. I'll be OK. Now go or you're gonna' be late.

Darry sighed again and picked up his tool belt. Pony was right; he did want to go in to work. Sitting around the house, thinking about how much he missed Sodapop, and remembering the trauma from exactly one year ago would have driven him crazy. Working and distracting himself were the only ways he knew how to cope. He and Pony were different that way.

"If she gets pregnant," Darry started. He didn't have a second half of the sentence planned. He knew he wouldn't need one.

Pony didn't even blush. He was hurting too much to be embarrassed. "Do you really think I'm in any sort of mood for that?"

"No, I don't." He started toward the door. "You call if you need anything. Or go to Two-Bit's or somethin'. I'll see if I can get out early today."

Pony nodded and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "See you later."

XXX

Leslie brought enough brownies and chocolate chip cookies to feed the whole city and more tissues than Ponyboy could use in a lifetime.

"Probably a whole forest worth of trees here," he said as he eyed the boxes of tissues.

She shrugged and sat down next to him on the couch. "Just wanted to be prepared."

He leaned against her, and she put her arm around his shoulders. The TV was on some daytime kids' show, but he didn't want to change the channel. He wasn't paying attention, anyway. He was lost in his own thoughts, reliving the events of last year over and over in his head.

He remembered the men on the front porch giving them the bad news. How Darry was somehow able to hold it together long enough to call Two-Bit and tell him the what had happened before he broke down. The next day, Kathy came over with the worst casserole he'd ever had, and Darry threw it out in the yard thinking the birds would eat it, but even they wouldn't touch it. He closed his eyes tight as he thought about the funeral and how everyone was inconsolable. That night, when Darry thought he was asleep, he started crying. The fact that Darry cried wasn't what stuck with him, though. It was what he said.

"I just don't know how we'll get through this, buddy," Darry had sobbed. "We ain't gonna make it."

He hadn't seen Darry that scared and vulnerable before, and he hadn't ever since. But in that moment, how he saw his brother changed. He would never forget it as long as he lived.

"Bein' awful quiet," Leslie said softly. "You OK?"

He nodded. "I'm alright."

"You wanna talk about anything?"

He shook his head.

"Anything I can do?"

He shook his head. "You just being here is enough."

He dozed off and on until Leslie had to leave for work. Like Darry that morning, she didn't seem to want to leave him.

"I could call Josh and see if he'll close up for the afternoon," she said. "Or I could talk Tom and Charlie into skipping their classes so they can keep the store open."

"Don't worry, I'm gonna be fine. I'll see you tomorrow, OK?"

She nodded. She seemed apprehensive, but she still said, "OK."

He heard her car start, and the sound of the engine got softer and softer until it was finally gone. Pony forced himself off the couch. He turned off the TV and then stumbled into Darry's room. His bed was more comfortable than the couch.

XXX

Ponyboy woke up to warm body next to him and an arm around his shoulders.

"Darry," he asked sleepily.

"Yeah, it's me. Go back to sleep, Pone. It's OK."

"What time is it?"

"'Bout six. I got home from work and wanted to take a nap. You do OK today?"

Pony rolled over to face him. "I had a weird dream."

Panic flashed across Darry's face. "Do you remember it?"

Pony nodded. "It wasn't one of those dreams. This one was about Steve."

Darry propped himself up on his elbow and nodded at Pony, telling him to keep going.

"We were going to Sodapop's grave to put flowers on it or somethin'," Pony started. "And I don't know why, but we had to swim across this river to get there. We were about halfway across, and then Steve got a cramp. I didn't even try to help him. I just treaded water and watched him drown."

"Then what?" Darry asked.

"I dunno," Pony said. "That's all I remember."

Darry nodded and lay back down on his pillow. Pony sighed.

"He actually had to watch Soda die," Pony said softly.

"I know," Darry said. "Think he'll ever be right in the head again?"

Pony shrugged. "I don't know."

A few minutes of silence followed, and then Pony sat up.

"I've gotta go do something," he said.

"What?" Darry asked. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be right back."

"Pony."

He was out the door before Darry could finish his sentence.

XXX

Ponyboy leaned against the glass and stared out at the street. The sun was almost down, but there was still light in the sky, and everything was a faint orange color. There was a nip in the air, and he was glad to be out of the wind.

"Thirty cents, please," the operator said. Pony put his change in the coin slot and waited. He was finding out that long-distance phone calls were a lengthy and annoying process, but it was worth it. He needed to make this call, and Darry would have killed him if he used the house phone and ran up their bill.

A woman on the other end picked up, and Pony momentarily froze.

"Uh, hi," he stammered. "Would it be possible for me to speak with Steve Randle?"

"Steve Randle?" she asked.

"Yes. He's an inmate, er, patient there."

"Oh, yes. Well, I don't know if it's such a good idea. He's been in a bit of a bad way since yesterday. Something about a good friend passed away this time last year? He hasn't wanted to talk to or see anyone, poor thing. He didn't even come out of his room for TV time. And everyone just loves TV time."

"Could I leave a message for him then?" he asked.

"Sure, let me get a pen," she said. There was a short pause before she continued. "And who is this from?"

"Ponyboy Curtis."

"I'm sorry?" the woman asked.

"Ponyboy Curtis," he repeated slowly.

"Alright … Ponyboy. And what did you want to tell him?"

"He might already know this," Pony said. "But just make sure he knows I forgive him, and that I don't hate him."

"You want me to tell him that you forgive him, and you don't hate him?" She asked. He could hear the confusion in her voice.

"Yes m'am. He'll know what I'm talking about."

"Alright. I'll get this to him just as soon as I can."

"Thanks," Ponyboy said.

As he stepped out into the cool autumn air from the warmth of the phone booth, he had only two things on his mind: Steve Randle, and the hope that he would get his message.

* * *

><p>My two hopes for this chapter: 1) that the last sentence didn't fall flat that it wasn't totally lame/ people got that it's a nod to the first sentence of The Outsiders. 2) That this story isn't dragging and getting too boring. Things will start picking up soon, though. But if I'm not holding your attention, or if I'm doing anything else wrong, feel free to call me out on it.

Reviews are always appreciated! :D


	23. Chapter 23

Two-Bit and Amy walked through the door just as the streetlights came on. She was wearing the most ridiculous outfit Ponyboy had ever seen, and Two-Bit was carrying a paper bag with a badly drawn jack-o'-lantern on it.

"Trick or treat!" he said.

Darry cocked an eyebrow at him. "What … what _is _she?"

"She is in costume," Two-Bit said. He sat down on the couch and put her on the floor. She promptly started playing with the paper bag.

"I get that she's in costume, Two-Bit, but what's she supposed to be?"

He shrugged. "Well, y'know, some sort of fairy princess magic something. I didn't think she'd want to go out so I wasn't prepared, but at the last minute she insisted that I take her trick-or-treating. So I just threw this together."

Pony laughed. "So what that really means is Kathy gave all the candy to little kids so there wasn't any left for you, and now you're using your baby for your own selfish intentions."

"You make it sound like a bad thing," Two-Bit said.

Darry took a pack of Fruit Stripe gum out of the bowl on the coffee table and tossed it at Two-Bit. He had just finished stuffing half the pack of gum into his mouth when Leslie showed up at the door. He waved at her and tried to say hi, but his mouth was so full that it just came out as gibberish. She understood what he meant, though, and she sat down on the floor to play with Amy.

"So what is she, exactly?" she asked.

"Magic fairy princess thing," Two-Bit said. He was still hard to understand because of all the gum in his mouth.

"Oh, that's what I was when I was her age," Leslie said.

Two-Bit started laughing, and Ponyboy was worried that he would swallow the massive wad of gum and choke to death. Pony took Leslie's hand and started to lead her toward the door.

"Midnight, Pony," Darry called after them.

Pony nodded and let the screen door slam shut as he and Leslie stepped out into the night.

XXX

"So explain this to me again," Ponyboy said. He and Leslie were in her car, headed toward a house on the south side of town.

"I think the name is pretty self-explanatory. The annual Halloween _Poe_try Party. We read everything Edgar Allen Poe, eat food, and get hammered. We've been doing this since my freshman year."

"But I don't have to read anything?"

"Not if you don't want to. I usually read _A Dream Within a Dream_, and then Todd and Richie always bring a stuffed animal monkey and act out _Murders in the Rue Morgue_, but other than that nothing is set in stone. Except the drinking."

"I gotta get home eventually, Leslie."

"It'll work out."

"You know about my parents."

She pulled up in front of a large brick house and put the car in park. She put her hand on his knee. "I'll go easy on the booze tonight."

A guy with long blonde hair answered the door for them. He was holding a big bottle of wine.

"Leslie!" he said. He hugged her.

"Randy, this isn't your house," she said matter-of-factly.

"No, but I was closest to the door." He held the bottle out to Ponyboy, "Cognac?"

He shrugged and took a swig from the bottle. It was strong, and he tried his hardest not to make a face.

"Come on in," Randy said. They did, and he closed the door behind them.

Randy disappeared into the crowd, and Leslie led Pony into the kitchen so they could get drinks. For the next hour, they mingled with different people, and Leslie introduced him to all her friends and classmates. Pony started feeling tipsy after a few glasses of wine, and decided to switch to punch. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why he didn't start sobering up.

Eventually, everyone sat in a circle in the living room. A guy named Chris started off by reading _The Raven_, and then Richie and Todd acted out _Murders in the Rue Morgue_ with their stuffed animal monkey. Leslie read her poem, a few more people read short stories, and Pony helped himself to another large glass of punch.

"Anyone else?" Chris asked after the room had been silent for a few minutes.

Ponyboy was only half aware of what he was doing when he stood up.

"Yes," he said. His voice sounded funny. "I would like to read this poem to my girlfriend, Leslie. She likes Whitman more than Poe, but I think we can all agree that Frost is the best out of all of them."

Leslie was giving him a look that he couldn't read, but it looked like a mix between amusement and horror. The look became more obvious when instead of standing in the middle of the circle; Pony took the book of poems, sat right in front of Leslie, and held her hand.

"It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know, by the name of Annabel Lee. And this maiden, she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me," he started.

Everyone clapped for him when he was finished, and he tripped over himself trying to walk back to Leslie. She was already on her feet with her purse over her shoulder and her car keys in her hand.

"And on that note, we need to get going," she said.

There was a chorus of goodbyes as Leslie hurried him toward the door.

"Oh God, Oh God," she muttered to herself as they drove out of the neighborhood.

"Didn't you like the poem?" Pony asked. He leaned against her shoulder. "I read it just for you."

"You're drunk," she said flatly.

His eyes widened. "Drunk? But I only had a couple glasses of wine, and then I started drinking the punch. But there's no booze in punch."

She groaned. "It was spiked, Pony."

"I didn't taste spikes. They must have been really little."

"I mean there was vodka in it," she said.

"Oh," Pony said. Then, slowly but surely, reality started setting in. "Vodka punch?"

"Yes, Ponyboy."

"So … I'm _drunk_?"

"Yes. And your curfew is in half an hour."

"Whoa, I'm screwed," he said.

"My thoughts exactly," Leslie said.

XXX

Leslie bought him some coffee and drove around the North side for a while in a vain attempt to sober him up, but nothing would work. Defeated, they finally pulled up in front of the house. They both hoped that Darry would be asleep, but when they got to the door, they saw that they weren't that lucky.

"I can explain!" Pony started. Leslie shushed him and turned to Darry.

"I am so sorry. Apparently he didn't know the punch was spiked," she said.

Darry's eyes looked tired as he stood up from the chair. "I'll take care of him."

"I can do something. It's all my fault. I should have kept a better eye on him," Leslie said.

"Yes, you should have," Darry said. "He's four years younger than you, Leslie. He doesn't know these things."

"Only three and a half years younger," Pony interjected.

Darry sighed. "I should've known this would be trouble," he muttered.

"Anything I can do?" Leslie asked timidly after a minute.

"Just go home," Darry said.

Leslie nodded and walked away in silence.

Darry sighed again. "Let's get you to bed, Pony."

"Don't make me break up with her," Pony whined.

"I ain't makin' you do anything tonight, Pony. You just need to get to bed."

Darry led Pony into his room and gently pushed him onto the bed.

"I really love her, Darry," Pony said.

"I know you do, buddy," Darry said. He started taking Pony's shoes off.

"I'm gonna' marry her, and we're gonna' have real pretty kids, and I'll write books and she'll teach English."

"You've got it all planned, don't you?"

"Yeah. It'll be perfect."

Darry was giving him that strange almost sympathetic look again, and in a second of clarity, Pony realized that he was reminding him of Sodapop again.

"If you get sick, you do it in the trash can, not on the floor," Darry said. He crawled into bed next to Ponyboy and turned off the light.

"Do you hate me 'cause I'm drunk?"

"No, Pony. Everyone gets drunk once in their lives. Now hush up and go to sleep."

It was quiet for a few minutes and then Pony softly said, "Darry?"

"Huh?" he replied.

"I love you," Pony said. "And I'm making Leslie name all the kids after you. Even the girls."

Darry couldn't help laughing. He put an arm around his brother's shoulders. "That's between you and her. Now you need to get some rest, OK Pone?"

But his words fell on deaf ears. Ponyboy was already asleep.

* * *

><p>Just in case there was any question, I don't own <em>Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Raven, Annabel Lee, A Dream Within a Dream, <em>or any other work by Edgar Allan Poe.

This one is kind of long and has a lot of dialogue, but I've had this chapter in my head for a while, and I really wanted to write it. I'm not sure how I feel about drunk Ponyboy, so feedback on that if you've got the time would be great.

Reviews make me incredibly happy! :D


	24. Chapter 24

"What're you gonna do to me, Darry?" Pony asked.

It was almost four o'clock, but Ponyboy had been awake and miserable since about ten that morning. He had a terrible hangover, and he didn't see how people could go out drinking every night. Even once or twice a week seemed like it would be too much. Nothing was worth the throbbing headache, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound. He wasn't in any hurry to leave Darry's bed. Just lying there, swallowing aspirin, guzzling Pepto Bismol, and occasionally forcing down a cracker or sip of ginger ale was all that he felt up to.

Darry sighed, "I dunno. Part of me thinks this hangover is punishment enough, but part of me thinks I ought to do something more."

Pony remembered one time when Darry came home drunk. It was his senior year, and the football team had gone undefeated for the whole season. There was a big party at his friend Paul Holden's house, and when Darry got home from it he was so drunk he could hardly stand. Their dad had woken him up early the next morning and made him clean up the yard and wash the truck. He was miserable and throwing up the whole time. Pony was glad that Darry hadn't done something like that to him.

"Are you gonna make me stop seeing Leslie?" Pony whispered after a minute.

"Couldn't do that to you. And you see her every day at work anyway."

Pony nodded and closed his eyes. His head was pounding, and even though the curtains were drawn and it was almost dark outside, the room was still too bright. He was about to ask for another aspirin, but Darry started talking again before he could.

"She called earlier."

"Leslie? What'd she say?"

"Wanted to apologize to me," Darry said. "She feels real bad about bringing you home drunk, apparently."

Pony nodded.

"You remember telling me how much you loved her last night?" Darry asked.

"No. What'd I say?"

"Just that you love her and you wanna marry her," Darry said. "And you promised to name all your kids after me."

"Hope she's OK with that," Pony said.

Darry laughed softly. "Yeah, me too."

"I really do love her, Dar."

"I know you do," he said. "And judging from that phone call, she's pretty crazy about you too. But you've gotta understand that I ain't so quick to let the two of you go out somewhere unsupervised."

"I know it," Pony said.

Darry sighed. "Two weeks. The only times you see her outside of work are on Friday and Saturday nights, when she will come over here. Understand?"

Pony was too tired to argue, and he knew it wouldn't have done much good even if he had the energy for it. "Shoot, I'm just glad that you didn't make me clean up the yard and wash the truck while I'm nursin' this hangover."

Darry laughed, and Pony winced as a bolt of pain shot through his head. "You could kill someone and I still wouldn't do that to you."

"Dad sure knew how to cross the line into cruel and unusual punishment, didn't he?"

"Yep," Darry replied. He had a far-off look in his eyes, and Ponyboy knew that he was remembering their father. "He sure did."

XXX

Ponyboy got up early on Sunday morning. His hangover was finally gone, but it brought a new set of problems for him to deal with. He felt dirty because he hadn't showered since Friday morning, but he was also starving from hardly eating on Saturday. Then there was Leslie. He knew that he would see her at work the next day, but he still felt like he should call her. Hunger took over, and he got a big bowl of cereal and took it into the living room. He had just sat down on the couch and put a spoonful of cereal into his mouth when the phone rang.

"Hullo," he said. His mouth was still full, and he was trying to chew as quickly and quietly as he could.

"Ponyboy?"

He almost dropped the phone. "Steve?"

"Yeah, it's me. How ya' doin', kid?"

"They let you use the phone?" Pony asked. He knew they got to watch TV every night and have visitors once a week, but phone privileges were a luxury he didn't know they had.

"Yeah, if you're good they give you play money once a week," Steve said. "You can buy different stuff with it, and I finally saved up enough for a phone call. It's the most expensive thing you can get, and this one is worse 'cause it's long distance."

"Oh," Pony said. "Right. That makes sense."

Steve snickered, "so how ya' been?"

"Fine, I guess," Pony said. "I went to a party the other night and accidentally got drunk. I was hung over all day yesterday."

"Hold up. How do you _accidentally_ get drunk?" Steve asked.

"I didn't know the punch was spiked," Pony said sheepishly.

Steve laughed long and hard about that. "Only you could manage something like that, Pony," he said once he managed to compose himself. "So I take it you're still dating the cougar? Whatever her name is."

"Leslie," Pony said. "And, yeah. I am."

"You been all the way yet?"

"_What_?"

Steve laughed again. "I'll take that as a yes."

Pony felt his face turning red, and he was glad Steve wasn't there to see him. He and Leslie actually hadn't gone all the way yet, but he didn't want anyone to know how many times they got close. It was more than he wanted to admit to himself.

"So what's up with you, Steve," Pony said, changing the subject.

"Well, for a while the doctors were saying I'd be out by Christmas," Steve said. "But I sort of … regressed on the anniversary of Soda's death, and now they want to keep me here longer."

"Oh," Pony said. He wanted to know what had happened, but he also didn't want to pry. He knew that Steve would offer that information if he wanted to.

"Probably for the best anyway," Steve said. "They say that it's real hard to stay off heroin once you go back to your old neighborhood."

"We'll keep you clean," Pony said.

"I know you'll try," Steve said. "Hey, I'm running low on time. I just wanted to tell you somethin'. Remember that message you left me a few weeks ago? The one saying you forgive me and you don't hate me."

Pony nodded and then realized that Steve couldn't see him. "Yeah, I do."

"Well," Steve started. "I just wanted to let you know that I didn't know that before. I mean, I kind of figured, but I didn't really _know_. And hearing you say it … it meant a lot. So thanks."

Pony sat in silence. He knew that it wasn't easy for Steve to humble himself like that. He couldn't remember ever hearing a heartfelt thank you from him. It was strange. It was almost like this Steve Randle and the Steve Randle he grew up with were two different people.

"It was nothing," Pony said.

He heard a timer go off on Steve's end. "That's the end of my call," Steve said.

"I'll talk Two-Bit into coming to see you soon," Ponyboy said.

"Tell him and Superman I said hi."

"I will," Pony said. "Bye, Steve."

"I'll talk to you later, Pony."

* * *

><p>This chapter has a lot of dialogue, I think, because I was kind of writer's blocked when I was writing it. I knew what I needed it to say, but I just had a hard time actually saying it.<p>

Reviews always make my day!


	25. Chapter 25

Tom and Charlie were already gone when Ponyboy got to work on Monday, and Leslie was sitting behind the counter. She was trying to read a book, but Pony could tell just by looking at her that she wasn't paying attention to it. She was absently playing with the star necklace that he gave her with one hand and clicking a pen open and closed with the other. She always did things like that when she was nervous.

"Leslie," he said.

She looked up, and her eyes lit up when she saw him. "When'd you get here?"

"Just now," he said. "Came in the back."

She stood up and was out from behind the counter in a flash. Before he could process what was happening, she had her arms wrapped tight around his waist. He hugged her and ran his hands up and down her back.

"I was worried," she said. "I didn't know what had happened. I never heard from you after the party."

"It's alright," he said softly. "Everything is gonna be fine."

"Is Darry mad? I bet he hates me now," she said.

"No, no. Everything is fine. He said you called and apologized."

She nodded. "I wanted to do whatever I could, but I didn't know if it would help."

"He goes for that sort of thing," Pony said. "Loves it when people step up and take responsibility."

Pony held her for another minute and then pulled out of the hug. He took her hand and led her toward the counter.

"What'd he do to you?" she asked.

He shrugged. He wasn't sure how to tell her. "He went pretty easy on me."

"'Doesn't really tell me much. Did he lecture you on how you shouldn't drink or something?"

"No. Think he figured the hangover did a good enough job of that."

"It was a bad one, huh?" she asked.

He nodded. "I'm getting a headache just thinking about it."

She looked down at the floor. "Sorry."

"Not your fault," he said softly.

She looked back up at him. "We can still see each other, right?"

He nodded, and he could tell that she was relieved.

"There's a bit of a catch, though," he said. "For two weeks, I'm not allowed to see you unless he's there. You're only allowed over Friday and Saturday nights."

She nodded. "Not bad at all."

He cocked an eyebrow. "You think?" He hadn't exactly thought she would be mad, but he didn't think she'd take it as well as she did either.

"Could've been worse," she said. "We'll have fun. We can make Jiffy Pop, and then Two-Bit and Amy can come over and we'll all play Candy Land."

Pony laughed. "Doesn't sound half bad when you say it."

"It won't be, I promise," Leslie said.

"'Gonna miss going to Lovers' Lane with you."

"You went seventeen years without action before you met me," she said. "I don't think a two week break will kill you."

"I beg to differ," he said.

She smiled mischievously at him. "Well, there's always the break room."

XXX

The two weeks went by slower than Ponyboy expected. He tried his hardest not to think about how little time he could spend with Leslie, but school wasn't a good enough distraction. On weekends she got to come over for a few hours, but they could hardly even hold hands because Darry was always hovering near by. Pony and Leslie tried a few times to start make out sessions in the break room at work, but Tom or Charlie always interrupted them. One time Joshua walked in when Pony had his hands up Leslie's shirt, and after that they were too afraid to try again. He was relieved when his shift Friday came to an end. He was dying for some time alone with Leslie, and the next day he and Two-Bit were going to go see Steve in Norman. It was a welcome change from not being allowed out for the past two weekends.

"You're a free man now," Leslie said as they sped across town in her car.

"Yeah," he said. He rested his head on her shoulder. "And not a moment too soon."

She took one hand off the steering wheel and put it around his shoulder. "I second that."

The needle on the speedometer climbed, and Pony tensed as they got closer to the street that would take them to Lovers' Lane. It had been two whole weeks since the last time he and Leslie were there, and he was afraid he had forgotten everything that she'd taught him. He closed his eyes and started mentally running through everything he was supposed to do. When he opened his eyes again, he realized they weren't on the road to Lovers' Lane after all. They were in a neighborhood of nice two-story houses.

"Leslie?" he said. "Where are we?"

"It's a surprise," she said.

They drove a few more blocks and then pulled into a driveway.

"This is my house," she said. She smiled. "And my parents are out for the night."

Pony's eyes got huge. All he could do for a good two minutes was stare at Leslie. He was too stunned to speak, but he knew in the back of his mind that he had been quiet for too long.

All he could think of to say was, "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me."

Leslie burst out laughing. Pony sat awkwardly in the passenger seat until she composed herself.

"I'm sorry," she said. She giggled. "But, Benjamin, I want you to know I'm available to you."

That time he had to laugh with her. She took advantage of the lightened mood to give him a quick kiss on the cheek and then get out of the car. He followed her into the house.

"You want a tour or something?" she asked.

Ponyboy was already distracted by the pictures of Leslie's family that were hung above the fireplace. There was one of her parents on their wedding day, Leslie's high school senior portrait, and a picture of a boy in a graduation cap and gown.

"Is that your brother?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. That's from when he graduated from college."

Pony looked at the picture for a few seconds longer and then looked at Leslie. "Ya'll look alike."

She smiled. "I wonder why?"

Pony laughed nervously, and an awkward silence settled on them. They both knew what was going to happen, but neither one of them wanted to talk about it. They were too nervous to move things forward, and Pony thought that they might end up just standing in front of the fireplace for the whole night.

Leslie's voice startled him. "We don't have to if you don't want to."

Pony looked at her, and she kept talking.

"Just … things have gotten pretty far, y'know? And we've been together for three months now. I thought it would be a good way to celebrate your punishment being over," she said. She paused for a second. "But if you're not ready, I won't be offended."

A million thoughts went through his head. He didn't know what to tell her. He wanted to, that was for sure. He'd been thinking about it for the past few weeks, but he was terrified that he wouldn't be any good. Leslie had been around the block once or twice, so she knew the difference between a good lay and a bad one.

Pony looked down at the floor. "What if I'm not any good?"

Leslie slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. "It doesn't matter. I love you. I think I love you more than I've loved any other boy."

He smiled. "I always hoped that the night I lost my virginity would start with quoting _The Graduate_."

Leslie smiled back at him and giggled. "Well, we don't want to waste the perfect moment, right?"

"Right," he said.

"My room's upstairs."

His heart skipped a beat. He couldn't decide if he was more terrified or excited, but he heard himself say, "I'd like to see it."

* * *

><p>I own a DVD of <em>The Graduate<em>, but I don't own the rights to the movie.

Not sure how people will react to this chapter, and I want to know what you guys think. Any kind of reviews make my day! :)


	26. Chapter 26

"Should've seen Amy this morning," Two-Bit said.

He and Ponyboy were driving to Norman, and Two-Bit was pushing the car as fast as it would go. They were running almost an hour late, and he was determined to make up for lost time. It had been too long since the last time they saw Steve, and he wanted to make sure that they could see him for as long as possible.

"What'd she do?" Pony asked as he nervously eyed the gauges on the dashboard. The last thing they needed was for the car to overheat.

"Well, Kathy took off work today to watch her," Two-Bit said. "I told her your girl could watch her again, but she wasn't having it."

Two-Bit took both his hands off the steering wheel to light a cigarette, and Ponyboy grabbed onto the dashboard so hard that his knuckles turned white. They almost drifted into the other lane, but Two-Bit steered them out just in time. He seemed totally unfazed by their near accident.

"So anyway, Kathy thinks she doesn't spend enough time with Amy or somethin', so she insisted on taking off," Two-Bit continued. "I went to leave this morning, and Amy had the biggest fit. Glory, I ain't never seen her cry so much. Then Kathy went and got all upset because she thinks Amy loves me more than her."

Two-Bit rolled down the window and threw his cigarette out. "So, long story short, that's why I'm late. Man, it's been a weird morning."

Pony didn't answer. He was staring out the window, lost in his own thoughts. He almost jumped out of his skin when Two-Bit tapped him on the shoulder.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Fine," Pony replied.

Two-Bit cocked an eyebrow. "I don't buy it."

"Really, it's nothing," Pony said. "Just thinking."

"'Bout what?"

Pony sighed. He'd heard his fair share of bull sessions, and Two-Bit used to be able to brag with the best of them. He knew there was nothing to be embarrassed about, but he still didn't want to talk about it. Leslie wouldn't have wanted him spreading it around either.

"Nothin'," he said. "It's a secret."

Two-Bit's eyes got big. "Are you flunking out of college?"

"_What_?" Pony said. "No, I couldn't flunk out if I tried."

"You know I'm gonna bug you all the way to Norman and back if you don't tell me what's up."

"I brought a book."

"It'll go out the window as soon as you open it."

"Fine," Pony said. His cheeks burned red. "Leslie and I slept together last night. Are you happy now?"

"Darry let her stay in the house all night?" Two-Bit asked. "And in your _bed_?"

Pony looked over at him and saw that he was grinning from ear to ear. He was just teasing him.

"Oh, God," Pony said. He covered his face and sunk down into the seat. He knew what was about to happen.

"So how was it?" Two-Bit asked.

"Fantastic," Pony said. His voice was muffled because his hands were hiding his face, and he knew he was red as a tomato.

"Where'd ya do it? Lovers' Lane? Motel? The first time Kathy and I did it, we were at the drive-in. It was very romantic."

"We were at her house. Her parents were out for the night. Golly, Two-Bit, are you trying to make me die from embarrassment before we even get to Norman?"

Two-Bit laughed long and hard about that, and Pony got enough nerve to look up from his hands and light a cigarette. After he took a few puffs, Two-Bit got quiet.

"You wore your raincoat, didn't you?" he asked.

Pony choked on his smoke.

"Look," Two-Bit said. "It ain't that I don't love Amy. I wouldn't change a thing about how that turned out. But you're too good to be a dad at seventeen. You're going places, kid. Just wanna' make sure nothing stands in your way."

"You're gettin' serious in your old age," Ponyboy said.

Two-Bit laughed. "Yep. First Darry and now me. I guess it'll happen to all of us."

"You ain't gonna tell him, are you?" Pony asked.

"That you slept with Leslie? Nah, what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

Pony breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't ready for Darry to know, and he certainly didn't want Two-Bit to be the first one to tell him.

XXX

Steve was almost to the point of bouncing up and down on the couch. Pony couldn't remember ever seeing him that excited, and he looked even better than the last time they saw him.

"Man, have I got stories for you," Steve said.

Two-Bit took out his pack of cigarettes and offered one to Steve. "We're all ears."

"Shit, I don't even know where to start," he said. He took a few puffs on his cigarette.

"Well, Evie and mom came to see me a couple weeks ago," he said.

"Both of 'em together?" Two-Bit asked. "How'd that go?"

Steve shrugged. "Mom just cried the whole time. Thought the doctors were gonna' want to stick her in this place with me. But seein' Evie was nice. I didn't think she'd come."

"Ya'll back together or what?" Two-Bit asked.

"No. Not yet, anyway. Maybe when I get out of here." Steve was starting to smile, even though what he had just said wasn't exactly good news. Pony realized what was up.

"So, is that soon?" he asked. He remembered Steve said that he was going to be out by Christmas, but then the doctors wanted to keep him longer.

Steve was grinning from ear to ear by that point. "Day before New Year's."

Everything after that was just a blur of cheering and hugs. A group of nurses came over and told Pony and Two-Bit that they were causing too much of a disruption and they had to leave. But it hardly mattered to them. In just over a month, Steve would be home.

* * *

><p>Steve's scene ended up being shorter than I planned. I think he'll be more interesting once he gets to Tulsa, so don't worry, he'll be around more.<p>

Reviews are awesome! :D


	27. Chapter 27

"Oh, good, Mr. Curtis. Please be seated."

Ponyboy sat down in the chair across from the man who was apparently his academic advisor. He had never seen the guy before. Even when he was registering for classes, he hadn't seen him. He didn't want to see him then, either. He was done with finals, and so were Leslie, Tom, and Charlie. They were going to buy some booze after they closed the store that night, and then the four of them were going to cruise the Ribbon. Everyone had been stressed out from finals for the past week, and Pony couldn't wait to have some fun again.

His advisor was still looking at his file, and Pony was starting to wonder why he had been called in to the office. "Is there some kind of problem?" he asked.

His advisor looked up. "Let's start from the beginning. My name is Mr. Richards."

"Yeah, I noticed the sign on the door," Ponyboy said. He didn't care if Mr. Richards thought he was mouthy. He just wanted to get out of there.

"Yes, well, you asked if there is a problem. I suppose that depends on how you define problem."

Pony tensed. He had been skipping his classes, but it was only because they were so boring. He knew he made A's on his finals, though, so he didn't know what could be wrong.

"I've been looking over your transcript," Mr. Richards continued. "And it seems that you have some Advanced Placement credit that we didn't account for when you enrolled."

Pony nodded, "ok."

"The classes you've signed for in the spring will all be fine," Mr. Richards said. "But after that, there are no more classes here for you to take. You will have satisfied the curriculum for this institution."

"So I'll have to transfer somewhere else for next fall?" Pony asked.

"Essentially, yes," Mr. Richards said. "I hope that won't be a problem."

He thought back to high school. He had started applying to colleges and to get scholarships before his senior year even started. A year ago, he had already been accepted to Oklahoma, and he had known about it for a good two months. There was no way he would be able to get in again on such short notice. His head started to pound.

"I'm afraid it's a _huge_ problem," Pony said. "I've already missed the cutoff dates for admission. You couldn't have told me about this sooner?"

"I really do apologize," Mr. Richards said. "The matter only recently came to my attention. And in regard to meeting deadlines, the cutoff for transfer students is later. You'll have to really push, but it's not a lost cause."

Pony sighed and rubbed his eyes with his palms. "I'll be needing financial aide."

Mr. Richards fumbled with some papers on his desk, and he handed a few pamphlets to Ponyboy. "This should tell you all you need to know. Is there anything else you'll be needing?"

He shook his head. "Don't think so."

"Well, let me know if you need anything else."

Pony stood up. He couldn't remember the last time he was so angry, and he wanted his advisor to know it. "Somehow, I think you're the _last_ person I'll be coming to," he said as he stormed out the door.

His head was spinning as he rode the bus to Beatty's. He didn't know what to do. What would he tell Darry? What would he tell Leslie? What would happen if he couldn't get the scholarships he needed? His stomach lurched and his body went cold when he realized the answer. He would turn eighteen, and then he would be draft bait. He would die in the war just like Sodapop.

XXX

He was drunk. Leslie was drunk. He didn't know where Tom and Charlie were. Hell, he didn't know where he and Leslie were, but he didn't care. All he knew was that his life, as he knew it, was done. He and Leslie were about to do something incredibly stupid, and it didn't even matter.

"You're sure this is a good idea?" she asked. Her speech was slurred, and even though she was sitting down, she was still swaying slightly from side to side.

"I can't die, Leslie," he said. "I can't go to college, and I can't die."

Sometime between when he showed up at the bookstore almost shaking because he was so upset and after he and Leslie polished off a bottle of vodka together, he got it in his head that it would be a good idea to get her pregnant. He could marry her. She could have the kid. There were deferments for those things. They'd finish college when the war was over, after he was safe. Somehow, Leslie also thought it was a good idea.

"I love you," he said softly as he drunkenly kissed her neck.

"I love you too," she replied.

"You're sure you want this?" he asked.

"If it'll keep you out of the war," she said.

"It will," he said as he reached to unhook her bra. "It will."

XXX

He didn't recognize his surroundings when he woke up.

He was in what looked like a cabin. The walls were made of logs, and all the furniture was made out of wood. The carpet was a weird orange color. He was lying in a bed with crisp white sheets and a patchwork quilt on it. They looked clean, but they smelled faintly of sweat and vodka.

His head hurt. He closed his eyes and started trying to remember the night before. He told Leslie what had happened at the community college, and she said she'd do anything she could to help. Tom and Charlie bought what had to be the whole liquor store's supply of vodka. They cruised on the Ribbon for a while, and then they got bored.

His stomach knotted. He wasn't sure if it was from the liquor that was still in his system, the memory of the previous night, or both.

He vaguely remembered calling Darry from a phone booth and asking if he could stay the night at Charlie's lake house. Darry had said yes, but only after Pony assured him that Leslie wouldn't be there. She was there, though. They had made out for the whole thirty-minute drive, and then went straight upstairs to a bedroom.

He rolled over. Sure enough, Leslie was sleeping peacefully next to him. She was totally naked, and so was he. He searched the room frantically for a used condom, but didn't find one. That was when he knew that everything he remembered was true and not just a drunken hallucination. He shook her awake.

"Hmm?" she hummed. She opened her eyes. "Pony?"

"Leslie," he said. He swallowed hard. "What did we _do_?"

* * *

><p>It's been a while, I know. I've been totally swamped with school. I should have been studying today, too, but someone told me this is "procrastination week", so I decided to take some time off from studying to write.<p>

Is this chapter too much of a deus ex machina? I'm a little worried that it is, but I need to move the plot forward or else this story will end up being like sixty chapters long. But feel free to call me out if you think it is. I'm always open to re-writes.

Reviews always make my day! And after this awful, test-filled month, I need my day made. Not that I'm trying to guilt trip you guys or anything... ;-)


	28. Chapter 28

The next day was Christmas, but he hardly cared. The two weeks between his drunken night and Leslie had dragged by, and he felt more down each day. He tried to concentrate on his transfer and scholarship applications, but he had a deep, gnawing feeling in his gut that it was useless. He started having nightmares again. Darry thought that they were because of all the stress with school, and he wasn't about to let him find out otherwise. But as bad as he was, Leslie was even more terrified, and that was really saying something.

He tossed his cigarette onto the concrete and crossed the street to the next block. Leslie was stuck at her house, getting ready for the big Christmas celebration with her family. He figured he might as well do his own version of the same thing.

He put the branches that he'd cut of the tree and the gingerbread man on top of Soda's grave and sat down on the cold ground next to it.

"Merry Christmas," he said. He sniffled and wiped his eyes with his gloved hand. He hadn't even been there a whole minute, and he was already crying. That was how shaken up he was.

"Oh, glory, Sodapop," he said. "I've really messed things up this time."

He was quiet for a minute. "I was just so upset about school and everything. Darry called up to the college, and you should've heard how he let them have it." He sighed. "I just wasn't thinking. Didn't even think about Canada."

He stopped and looked over his shoulder. He could have sworn that he heard someone walking toward him, but no one was there. He turned back to the grave.

"How'd you tell Darry about Sandy?" he asked. He sighed. "Guess it don't even matter. It wasn't yours."

A twig popped. He turned around again, but there was still no one.

"'Must be squirrels or somethin," he muttered as he turned back around. He started absently playing with the tree branches, putting them and the gingerbread man into different arrangements.

"Just don't know what to do," he said softly. "Think I should tell him now? Should I wait 'till she shows? Hell, we don't even know if she's pregnant yet. Don't wanna get him all worked up for nothin'."

He finally found a formation for the branches that he liked, and he set the gingerbread man on top of them.

"Wish you could send me another sign," he said as he stood up. "Maybe that's what you could get me for Christmas."

He'd only taken a few steps when he crashed into something warm and solid. He knew who it was just by looking at the boots.

"H-how long have you been there?" he asked.

"Long enough," Darry replied. "I knew I'd find you here."

"Are you mad?" Pony asked.

"Let's get you home," Darry said. "You'll catch your death out here. Coming out without a hat on? What were you thinking?"

The walk home was unbearably quiet. Pony tried counting how many steps he took per block, and then he switched to how many breaths he took. He smoked two cigarettes, but nothing could ease his mounting anxiety. They got to the house. Darry's fists were deep in his pockets, and he was giving Pony that pleading, defeated look that he gave him at the hospital when he came back from Windrixville. It was more than Pony could take. He keeled over on the sidewalk in front of the house and was sick.

XXX

Even though it was warm in the house and Darry had wrapped him up in a blanket, he was still trembling twenty minutes later. Darry hadn't said a word to him. He just went into the kitchen and started banging pots around, and then it got quiet. He knew he was really going to get it, but not knowing exactly what his punishment would be was killing him. He was sure that he would have gray hair before the night was over. If Darry kept him waiting for much longer, he wouldn't even need to worry about punishing him. He would die from a heart attack first.

Darry was carrying two mugs with him when he came back to the living room. He handed one to Pony and set the other on the coffee table. Pony could hardly manage to take a sip of his drink because he was shaking so hard.

"Easy now," Darry said. It was the first thing he'd said to Pony since they left the cemetery. "You're gonna be all right."

Pony took another sip of his drink. It was hot chocolate, but it had a kick to it. After a few more sips, he realized what he was tasting was brandy. He would have bet a million dollars that Darry's drink was more brandy than hot chocolate.

"I don't know what to say," Darry said. Pony could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"I'm sorry," Pony whispered.

Darry set his mug down on the table and buried his head in his hands.

"It seemed like the only thing to do," Pony said. "Knock her up and marry her, or die in the war once I turn eighteen."

"You could still get scholarships. You can put the money you made working toward college. Hell, Pony, you know I'll help you. If it comes down to it you can go to Tulsa and live at home. It's cheaper that way."

"And if I don't?" Pony asked.

Darry sighed. "You couldn't have waited a couple months? You'll know by March or April."

A tear spilled out from his eye, and he quickly brushed it away. "I'm so sorry."

Darry looked up from his hands. He had been crying more than Pony. "I just don't know what's worse. The fact that you're seventeen with a kid on the way, or the fact that I'm hardly even mad about it."

Pony cocked an eyebrow. "Huh? Did I hear that right?"

Darry nodded. "I'm disappointed. I'm _really_ disappointed. But…" his voice trailed off. He choked back a sob. "You're the only family I got left. I don't have anything without you. Losing you and Sodapop … I couldn't take it."

Pony's own eyes were starting to tear up. "Darry," he said.

Darry looked up at him. His eyes were red, and his nose was starting to run.

"Come here," he said as he put an arm around Pony's shoulders and pulled him into a hug.

"We'll make it work, little brother," he said. "Whatever happens, we'll work it out."

Pony nodded and sighed heavily. He knew Darry was right. If there was one thing they'd learned over the years, it was how to roll with the punches.

XXX

It was just before midnight when there was a soft knock on the door. Darry was half asleep on the couch, so Pony got up to answer it.

Leslie was standing on the porch. She wasn't wearing a coat, and her cheeks were rosy from the cold.

"Leslie," Pony said. He heard the couch springs squeak. Darry was suddenly wide-awake.

"I just got the best Christmas present I've ever had," she said.

He immediately caught her drift. "You're not pregnant?"

She shook her head and smiled from ear to ear.

He hugged her tight, and he heard Darry say, "Well, thank God."  
>"Merry Christmas," she whispered in his ear.<p>

"Merry Christmas," he said back. He stepped out on to the porch and closed the door behind him.

"Leslie?"

"Huh?"

"If I don't get in to college … What do we do then?"

"We'll go to Canada," she said after a minute of silence. "I'm sure Alfred would love to have us."

He didn't know if she was serious, and he didn't care. She was soft and warm in his arms, and the last thing he wanted to do was think about their future. He breathed deep, taking in her scent, and suddenly the coming year was miles away from his mind. He was perfectly happy with the present.

* * *

><p>Two updates in as many days? What is this craziness? Sparknotes version: I had the worst day ever, so I wasn't in any mood to study. Writing puts me in a better mood, so I decided to crank out another chapter.<p>

So Darry's reaction? Realistic? Not so realistic? What are your thoughts?

Reviews always make my day! :)


	29. Chapter 29

It was weird having Steve back in Tulsa, clean from heroin, and sitting on their couch, and Ponyboy couldn't decide exactly how he felt about it. Two-Bit, Kathy, and Darry were there too, and Leslie was going to come over sometime before midnight. It reminded him of how things used to be, and he half expected Sodapop to walk out of the kitchen with a freshly baked chocolate cake or for Johnny and Dally to come through the front door with some liquor that Dally stole. Things were different but somehow exactly the same, and he couldn't decide if it made him more happy or sad.

Two-Bit was showing Amy off to everyone, and Kathy seemed slightly annoyed with him.

"She's not a puppy, Keith," she said. "You can't just make her do tricks for our entertainment."

"Aww, she likes it," Two-Bit said. Amy really did seem to be enjoying the attention. Two-Bit's personality was already rubbing off on her.

Kathy rolled her eyes.

"You're just jealous because she learned how to say 'daddy' first," Two-Bit said, and then he gave her a kiss on the cheek. Kathy smiled. They'd never been able to stay mad at each other for long.

"So is Evie comin' by tonight?" Two-Bit asked.

Steve shrugged. "I dunno. She's at a party with some friends or somethin'. Said she'd come by for a while, but I kind of doubt it."

Steve was nervously playing with his empty bottle of Coke. He was the only one there besides Amy who wasn't drinking, but he looked like he could really use a beer or two. Pony noticed that he kept looking back toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms, and he knew that they were both thinking the same thing. They were both looking for Sodapop, waiting for him to appear. Pony managed to catch his attention. He picked up his pack of cigarettes and motioned toward the door. Relief washed over Steve's face, and he and Pony wordlessly walked out the front door together.

They sat down next to each other on the porch steps and smoked for a few minutes in silence. Pony exhaled deeply and affectionately punched Steve's shoulder just like Soda used to.

"I'm glad you're back," he said.

Steve nodded. "Wish I could say the same."

"You're not glad to be out of that place?" Pony asked.

Steve ground out his cigarette and gratefully took the new one that Pony offered him.

"I don't know," he said after a few drags. "It's all so different without Sodapop. I don't know if I'll ever get used to the fact that he's dead."

"You and me both."

He sighed. "It ain't the same at home, either. Mom's been all clingy. She follows me around all the time, making me sandwiches every five minutes even though she knows I'm not hungry. Dad just avoids me. Think he'd jump out of a window before he'd talk to me. I never thought I'd actually _wish_ he'd yell at me, but I'm almost there, you know?"

Pony thought back to what Johnny had said to him all those years ago in the lot. _Sometimes I think I like it better when the old man's hittin' me. At least then he knows I'm there._ The profound sadness of what his friend had said hadn't hit him until after he died, and it still bugged him. He wished that he had been able to say something to cheer Johnny up instead of complaining about Darry. And there Steve was, telling him almost the same thing, and he still didn't know what to say.

"Steve," he started.

"Don't worry about it, kid," he said. "It's not your cross to bear."

Pony was quiet for a few seconds. "But it is. You said yourself you always thought of me as a brother, and brothers gotta' look out for each other."

"Thought you'd forgotten all about that."

"Well, clearly I didn't," he said. "We'll leave the door open for you. We'll do whatever you need us to."

"Thanks, kid," he said softly.

Pony nodded and picked up his pack of cigarettes. "It's nothin'. You want one more?"

Steve nodded and took a cigarette, and Pony noticed that they'd smoked almost half the back between the two of them.

"So when do I get to meet the cougar who popped your cherry?" Steve asked.

Pony almost swallowed his cigarette, and then he spent a good thirty seconds choking on his smoke.

"Who said anything about _that_?" he asked.

Steve laughed and shook his head. "Thought you would've learned by now that you can't trust Two-Bit with a secret."

"Oh, God," Pony groaned. "Now I have to kill him."

"Shoot, everyone's happy for you," Steve said. He smiled faintly, but his eyes were still a little sad. "Just wish Soda could've see it."

Pony nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

A car pulled up in front of the house, and Pony's heart skipped a beat.

"That's her?" Steve asked.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"You really are head-over-heels for her," Steve said.

"I really am," Pony replied.

He met Leslie halfway down the front walk and hugged her tight.

"Hey you," he said softly.

"Hey yourself," she said. Her breath smelled faintly like wine, but he could tell she wasn't drunk.

"How was your parents party?" he asked. "You have fun?"

"I was the only college kid at a party of adults. Of course I had a ball. And you want to know something?"

"Of course I do."

"One of my dad's friends majored in English. He doesn't teach, though. I don't know what he does. But he and I were talking about poets, and he actually tried to tell me that Walt Whitman isn't the best American poet."

"Well, yeah. Everyone knows it's Frost," Pony said.

Leslie rolled her eyes. "I would've even been OK with that. But this guy was just insistent that Emerson is the best. Can you believe that?"

He laughed. He and Leslie disagreed on poetry sometimes, but they both hated Ralph Waldo Emerson. "I honestly can't."

Leslie kissed him deeply. "It's cold out here," she said when they came up for air.

He nodded. "Let's go inside. There's someone I want you to meet."

XXX

It was almost midnight, and everyone was anxiously watching the grandfather clock in the corner, waiting for it to chime. Darry had opened a bottle of champagne and poured everyone a glass. Steve went into the kitchen and replaced his with apple juice when he thought no one was looking. Pony had noticed, but he didn't say anything. Leslie and Steve were getting along OK, and Pony was happy about that. Really, he was just in a good mood. His closest friends and his brother were all together, and the girl he loved with all his heart was cuddled up next to him on the couch. If how he felt then was any indication of how the coming year would be, then he knew that he would be just fine.

The clock finally chimed. Two-Bit jumped up and yelled, "happy New Year!"

Everyone else stood up and clinked their glasses together. Two-Bit kissed Kathy and then gave Steve a bear hug. Pony dipped Leslie backwards and kissed her hard. Two-Bit whistled and Steve laughed at them, but Pony didn't care.

"Happy New Year, baby," he said.

"Happy New Year."

* * *

><p>Just fyi, I have nothing against Ralph Waldo Emerson. I just wanted Leslie and Pony to have a conversation about poets, and Emerson was the first one I could think of.<p>

I really am sorry for these huge breaks between updates. I have so much school stuff going on :-/

Reviews? Please? They make me really happy! :-D


	30. Chapter 30

Pony sighed heavily and looked over at Steve. He was staring off into space, chain smoking. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him so sad.

"I don't know what to say except that I'm sorry," Pony said.

Steve sighed. "Would've been bad enough if she just stood me up. But then she showed up at the same diner with a different guy."

He ground out his cigarette and lit another one. "Don't even know how I feel about this. I'm angry, I'm humiliated, I'm…" He choked back a sob, "I thought she still cared about me."

"She's a bitch, Steve," Pony said. "There's better girls out there."

"I don't care. She's the one I want."

Pony lit a cigarette of his own. He didn't know what to say to cheer Steve up, and he wished that Sodapop was there. He knew more about girls than Pony, and he knew he would have had Steve feeling better in a heartbeat. All Ponyboy could do was give Steve cigarettes and listen to what he had to say, and he was afraid that wasn't good enough. It didn't help that it was so close to Valentine's Day. Romance was everywhere, and Steve had just had his heart broken.

Steve sighed and looked up at the clock. "Guess I've gotta get goin'. You've got a hot date to go on."

"You can come with us," Pony offered.

"Yeah, and be the third wheel."

"C'mon, you like Leslie. Ya'll get along great."

"I just don't know if I can handle seeing you two with your tongues down each others' throats tonight," Steve said bitterly.

Pony blushed. "What if we promise to keep the making out to a minimum?"

Steve put his head in his hands and started massaging his temples. "Shit, I would kill for a fix right now."

Pony felt the color drain from his face. "I ain't leavin' you alone, Steve. You can't start usin' again."

"I'll be fine, Pony. You go and have a good time."

Pony shook his head. He couldn't forget the morning when he found Steve overdosing and almost dead in his car. He was willing to do anything to make sure it didn't happen again.

"Either you come with us or I'm cancelling and staying here with you. You ain't gonna relapse if I have anything to say about it."

Steve sighed heavily. "You don't give up, do you?"

"Nope."

"Fine. But if ya'll start gettin' it on, I'm leaving."

Pony blushed again. "Deal."

XXX

"You think he'll be OK now?" Leslie asked after they dropped Steve off for the night.

Pony smirked. "Yeah, I think you dumping your Coke all over Evie's white sweater perked him up."

"Well, I'm glad. He's been through a lot. And besides, she deserved it."

"Don't I know it," Pony said.

"Kinda wish we could've had some time alone, though," Leslie said after a minute of silence.

Pony looked at his watch. "Still got an hour before curfew."

Leslie smiled mischievously and turned the car down the next street. "Well then, I think a trip to Lover's Lane is in order."

XXX

Ponyboy flopped down on the couch, and Darry looked up at him.

"Somethin' wrong?" he asked.

"What _isn't_ wrong?" Pony asked.

"Well, my crystal ball seems to be on the fritz, so how about you tell me?"

"Well, for starters, Leslie's parents want us to come to dinner Friday night. And the way she talked about it, her mother is going to act rich and snooty while her father makes snide comments for the whole evening."

"Been to my fair share of Soc family dinners. That's usually how they go," Darry said. "What else?"

Pony sighed and took the envelope out of his jacket pocket. "And this came today."

Darry took the letter and looked over it. His face fell. "Oh, Pony."

"What am I supposed to do now, huh?" Pony asked. "Without scholarships there's no way I can go to Oklahoma. Come July, I'll be draft bait."

"There's still Tulsa," Darry said. "It's only the middle of March. There's still time for them to give you somethin'."

Pony sighed. "Golly, I hope so. Don't know what I'll do if they don't."

"We'll worry about that if it comes to it," Darry said. "Let's just think about this dinner party on Friday for now."

Pony stood up and started toward his bedroom. "We can't keep on sweeping it under the rug forever."

Darry set his jaw and absently started cleaning under his fingernails with his pocketknife. He hated to admit it, but he knew his brother was right. They'd have to face the reality that Ponyboy might not get in to college after all, and it seemed like it might be sooner rather than later.

A sharp pain in his hand brought him back to reality, and he realized that he was bleeding heavily from underneath his fingernail. Darry cursed under his breath and went into the bathroom for some iodine. It stung when he put it on the cut, but he had already drifted back into his own mind so he hardly noticed. All he could think about was losing Ponyboy to the war, just like he'd lost Sodapop. He wouldn't be able to handle it. He went into the kitchen and poured himself a tumbler of bourbon. He had work in the morning and he needed his sleep, but he knew he wouldn't get it if he was thinking about losing Ponyboy. He needed something to calm his nerves.

XXX

A woman who looked a lot like Leslie answered the door. She smiled a big smile at them.

"Well, hello," she said. Her breath reeked of wine. "I'm Ella Cohen, Leslie's mother. Won't you come in? Let me take your coats."

Darry and Ponyboy stepped through the door and handed their coats to Leslie's mother. She hung them on an ornate coat rack by the door and then turned back to them. She smiled at Darry and nodded approvingly.

"Leslie has always had impeccable taste in men," she said. Then she shifted her glance to Ponyboy. "Funny, I thought she said you were the older brother. But you can't be more than sixteen…"

"I think you're more mistaken, m'am," Darry said. "I'm Darrel Curtis. This here is Ponyboy. He's the one who's dating your daughter."

"Oh," Ella said. The disappointment in her voice was unmistakable. "I'm terribly sorry about that. Let me get the two of you some drinks."

They followed Leslie's mother into the kitchen, where Leslie and her father were waiting. Her father introduced himself and shook Pony's and Darry's hands, and then Leslie gave Pony a hug.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered in his ear before she pulled away.

Pony just smiled slightly and shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't looking forward to the evening, but he knew it wasn't Leslie's fault.

"I hope you like wine," Ella said as she handed Darry his glass. She was about to give Ponyboy his own glass of wine, but then she stopped.

"Oh, I suppose you can't drink legally yet," she said. She set the glass down on the counter. "No matter. You can just have Pepsi. Leslie isn't drinking tonight either."

Pony looked at Leslie and cocked an eyebrow. She loved wine. He didn't know why she wasn't drinking. Leslie rolled her eyes at her mother and sighed.

"It's fine, mother," Leslie said. "Let him drink what he wants. You let me drink when I was seventeen."

"I don't want to hear it, Leslie," she said. She poured a can of Pepsi into a glass and handed it to Ponyboy. He murmured a thank you to her mother, and then he and Darry sat down at the table.

"So, Ponyboy," Leslie's father said. "Quite the interesting name you've got there. Any significance to it?"

"My father named me," he said. "He was just imaginative and creative. Thought it'd be a unique name."

"Hmm, they're all the same word," Leslie's father said under his breath, and Leslie shot him a death stare.

Leslie's mother came back into the kitchen and set the plates of food down in front of everyone. It was uncomfortably silent as everyone ate, and then Leslie's father looked back up at Ponyboy.

"What exactly are your prospects, Ponyboy?"

"My … prospects … sir?" Pony asked.

"What are you planning to do with your life?"

"I had a full scholarship to Oklahoma for track and academics," Ponyboy said. "But then one of my brothers died and I didn't go. I'm in community college now, but I'm hoping to transfer into Tulsa in the fall."

"And then?" her father asked.

"I plan on majoring on English," he said. "I want to be a writer."

"Well, best of luck to you," her father said. "Most authors just end up wasting away and living in apartments with no hot water, just waiting on a big break that never comes."

"_Daddy_!" Leslie said. "Don't talk to our guests like that."

"Don't you tell me what to do, Leslie," he replied. "I swear, you're just like your brother, God rest his soul."

"Why are you still keeping up this charade? We all know he's alive and well in Canada."

"I swear, Leslie, you're more and more neurotic lately. I don't know how any boy puts up with you. I have half a mind to get you a lobotomy."

Ella giggled nervously. "Oh my, this is unpleasant dinner conversation. Perhaps we could continue this after our guests have left."

"Don't blame me, dear. Leslie started this whole thing."

"_I_ started it? _You're _the one who insulted my boyfriend without cause."

"Well he's really a winner, isn't he? You should've stayed with Tom. His father was a business man, he was set to inherit his money."

Leslie pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. "That may be true," she said. "But Tom isn't the father of my child."

Pony's jaw dropped. Before he could stop her, Leslie was running out the front door. He jumped up and followed her, and he could hear Darry's footsteps behind him. None of them spoke, and the next ten minutes were a blur. The next thing Ponyboy knew, they were almost to his house, and Leslie was crying on his shoulder.

* * *

><p>It's been a long time, I know. I've had a lot going on, and also been really lazy and uninspired. But I hope this didn't disappoint. I know a lot happens, but I felt like I needed to move the plot forward. I hope you all like the next chapter too!<p> 


	31. Chapter 31

Darry nervously paced the living room. Ponyboy and Leslie were sitting next to each other on the couch. He had an arm around her shoulders, and he was holding her close. Her face was pale, and she looked like she could start crying again at any minute. Ponyboy was shaken up himself, but he was trying to stay calm for Leslie. If he lost his cool, he didn't want to know what she would do.

Darry finally stopped pacing and turned to look at Pony and Leslie.

"When?" Darry asked. "How?"

Leslie tensed, and Pony gave her shoulders a squeeze.

"I … I don't know," she said. "I guess one of the condoms must have failed or something. But I missed my period and I've been getting sick in the mornings."

"And when were you planning on telling us?" Darry asked. A vein was twitching in his neck.

Leslie looked down at her shoes. "Next weekend," she said softly. "I wanted to be sure. I didn't want to get you worked up if it was nothing. We already had that one scare around Christmas."

A long silence followed. The only sound was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Darry started pacing again, and Pony gently ran his hand up and down Leslie's back.

"I had it all planned," she said. "I didn't want it to come out like this."

"Well, it did," Darry said. "So what're we gonna do about it?"

"I can get rid of it," Leslie said. "I know a girl who knows a midwife."

"No," Ponyboy said. He was surprised by the hardness in his voice. "It's my kid, too, and you ain't gettin' rid of it."

"But what if you get in to Tulsa? I can't let you be tied down with a kid. Look, Ponyboy, we don't have to break up even if I don't keep it…"

"We don't have a choice," he said. He could feel both Darry's and Leslie's eyes boring in to him.

"What do you mean you don't have a choice?" Darry asked.

Pony stood up and took the letter out of his back pocket. "Looks like we've all got secrets. I was gonna' wait until after the dinner tonight. Maybe even hold out until tomorrow. Tulsa didn't give me scholarships either. I ran the numbers. Even if I keep my job and live at home it's still too much."

"Oh, God," Darry said. He sighed. "I need a drink."

XXX

Two-Bit held his cigarette in one hand and nervously drummed his fingers on his knee with the other. Steve sat completely still while his cigarette burned down. They both looked like they had seen someone they loved get hit by a bus.

"She's knocked up?" Two-Bit finally said.

Ponyboy nodded. "She's knocked up."

"It's yours?"

"It's mine."

Two-Bit sighed. "Well, what're you gonna do?"

"Marry her," Ponyboy said. "I don't have a choice. I didn't get scholarships so I can't go to college. If I don't marry her, I'll be drafted for sure."

Steve punched the porch so hard that it shook. Pony and Two-Bit jumped and looked up at him. His knuckles were bleeding.

"Fuck," Steve said. "What'd we do? What'd we do to piss off the universe? Why the fuck do we always get the bad breaks?"

"Easy, Steve," Two-Bit said.

Steve shook his head and stood up. "If you can't make it out of here, Pony, can't no one make it out. I give up."

"Steve," Pony started. But Steve was already running down the walk toward the gate.

"I'll go after him," Two-Bit said. "You go see your lady. I know from experience. She needs you."

XXX

The sun was setting over the trees, and it gave everything a pinkish glow. Ponyboy and Leslie were sitting on a bench in the middle of the park, and he had his arms wrapped tight around her.

"I can't breathe, Ponyboy."

"I don't care. If your parents want to send you away so bad, they'll have to pry you and our kid that you're carrying from my cold, dead arms."

"If you keep this up, I'll be cold and dead long before you."

Pony loosened his grip a little, and Leslie took a few deep breaths.

"They can't do anything, Ponyboy," she said. "I'm twenty-one years old. They can kick me out of the house and quit giving me money, but that's about it. They're just trying to scare us."

"Well, it's working," he replied.

"You're out of the draft, Pony."

"That's only one bullet that we've dodged. Where are we gonna live? What'll we do for money? Kids are expensive, you know."

"You can write that bestselling novel you're always talking about," Leslie said. "It sounds good. People would buy it."

"Well, you know what they say about authors," Pony said.

"No, what do they say?"

"Most of them just live in apartments with no hot water, waiting for a big break that never comes."

"Don't let my dad get under your skin, Pony."

"He already did."

She sighed and stared at the setting sun. "I didn't think it would end up like this."

"Me neither."

"But I'm glad it's with you."

"Really?" he asked.

She nodded. "Of all the guys I've been with, you're the only one I could think about spending my life with."

Ponyboy pulled Leslie closer and kissed the top of her head. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"We'll make it through this."

"I know," she said.

"Ponyboy?" Leslie said after a minute.

"Hmm."

"I know what we can do," she said.

"What's that?"

"My brother has spare rooms at his house," she said. "He's well-liked. He can get us jobs."

"What are you saying?" Pony asked.

"I'm saying," Leslie said. She paused, "let's go to Canada."

* * *

><p>Is this plot twist working? Feel free to be brutally honest with me. I'd love to know what you think.<p>

Review? Pretty please? They always make my day! :D


	32. Chapter 32

Ponyboy's stomach was doing back flips as everyone sat around the table in the break room at Beatty's, but Leslie looked oddly calm. They'd decided before the day started that she would break the news to Tom and Charlie. Even though Leslie would be doing most of the talking, he was still terrified.

"We need a game," Leslie said. "And I have news. How about we kill two birds with one stone?"

Charlie nodded. "Guessing game?"

"Of course," Leslie said. "Who's first?"

"Your dad's letting you get a new cat?" Tom said.

"No," Leslie said.

"Alfred is coming back?" Charlie asked.

"If only. Next?"

"You overheard Josh saying that we're all getting raises?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Ponyboy knocked you up," Charlie joked.

Tom laughed and started to make his guess, but Leslie cut him off. She nodded to Charlie.

"We have a winner."

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and Ponyboy thought that he was going to be sick. Tom and Charlie just stared at them.

"You're kidding," Charlie finally managed. "You're kidding. Pony, tell me she's kidding."

Ponyboy shook his head. "Nope."

"Well, you're not keeping it," Charlie said.

"I am."

"Jeez, Leslie! Are you sick in the head? What's so wrong with you that you think getting knocked up is a good idea?"

"Class 3-A deferment," Tom said. "He can't go to war if he's got a kid on the way."

Leslie nodded. "Precisely."

"So, the scholarships didn't work out?" Charlie asked.

"No," Ponyboy replied.

"I don't know what to say," Tom said.

"That seems to be everyone's reaction," Leslie said.

"You know Alfred would have loved it if he came and stayed with him," Charlie said. "Why not just go to Canada, man?"

Ponyboy shrugged. Leslie laced her fingers through his and gave his hand a squeeze.

"It wasn't planned," she said.

"What do you mean it wasn't planned?"

"Are you really so dense that you don't get it, Charlie? It wasn't planned means it wasn't planned. It's damn convenient, but we didn't plan it."

Tom sighed. "Well, any more bombshells you want to drop on us?"

Leslie nodded. "Come the end of July, we're leaving."

"Leaving?" Charlie asked. "For where?"

"Canada," Leslie replied. "We're moving in with Alfred. Looking to get a fresh start somewhere new."

The room went quiet. Charlie and Tom looked stunned, and Pony thought that they news that they were leaving hit them harder than the news that Leslie was pregnant. The atmosphere in the room was heavy, and he wanted nothing more than to run.

"You can come with us," Leslie said. "Alfie's got plenty of room, if I understand right."

"Still got college left," Tom said. Charlie nodded in agreement.

"I know," she said. "I'm still gonna miss you guys."

"What, and you think we won't miss ya'll?" Charlie asked.

Leslie sniffled and buried her head in her hands. Within seconds, she was sobbing. Ponyboy wrapped his arms tight around her and tried to comfort her, but she kept crying.

"Hey, Les," Tom said. "You'll be OK."

"Damn pregnant women and their hormones," Charlie said.

Leslie smiled through her tears and started breathing deeply, trying to compose herself.

"Bet I'm a mess," she finally said. She shrugged herself free from Ponyboy's hug and stood up.

"Ya'll go on out," she said. "I'm gonna clean up."

The three boys stood up once Leslie disappeared into the bathroom. Tom flipped the sign to open and sat behind one of the registers. Charlie and Ponyboy started shelving books.

"You really love her?" Charlie asked after a few minutes.

"I really do," Ponyboy replied.

"You're gonna take care of the kid?"

"I'll do my damndest."

Charlie sighed. "I have to confess, Ponyboy, I'm still not over her. Hell, I don't think I ever will be."

He paused and took a deep breath. "But I know ya'll love each other. You two are soul mates if I've ever seen 'em."

He sighed and put a few more books on the shelf before he turned back to Ponyboy. "Just promise me you'll take good care of her."

Pony nodded. "You know I will."

XXX

Steve and Ponyboy sat across from each other on the porch. Neither one of them had spoken yet. They just chain smoked and awkwardly tried to avoid making eye contact. It was easier for Ponyboy than it was for Steve. He was distracted by the bruises that were all over his arms and legs.

"So what happened?" Ponyboy finally asked.

"Two-Bit would stop at nothing to make sure I didn't shoot up again," Steve said. "He tackled me so I'd stop runnin' from him, pretty much dragged me to his house, and then wrestled with me or sat on me until I quit fightin'."

"Shit," Pony said under his breath.

"Yeah. You should see him. He's got his fair share of cuts and bruises too."

"He just cares about you, Steve," Pony said. "We all do."

"Yeah, yeah," Steve said. He lit another cigarette.

"I'm fine," he said after a minute. "I ain't gonna start using again if that's what you're worried about. It just shook me up is all. It's like Sodapop and Sandy all over again."

"I know," Ponyboy said. "Shit, Steve, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about all of this."

"Don't be. Anything's better than 'Nam. If you got drafted I'd have drugged you and taken you to Canada if it came to that. 'Least that's taken care of now."

Pony nodded and took a drag on his cigarette.

"How's your girl holdin' up?"

"Good as she can, I guess. She's inside if you wanna talk to her."

"She stayin' here or something? I've seen her car outside the past few days," Steve said.

Pony nodded. "Her parents said get to an unwed mothers' home or they'd kick her out and cut her off from their money. So Darry's lettin' her stay with us for a while."

"You two getting an apartment?" Steve asked. Then he laughed. "Think I could move in? It's gettin' unbearable at home."

Pony sighed. "I gotta tell you something, Steve. And you can't tell no one cause even Darry don't know yet."

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Leslie and I have been talking," he said. "It's just gonna be hard staying in Tulsa. Anywhere in the country, really. The 3A deferment is only good for so long, and I can't ask her to keep havin' kids. Hell, we can't _afford_ for her to keep havin' kids."

"So what'll you do? Doesn't seem like you have much of a choice."

"You know about her brother in Canada?"

"The draft-dodger? What about him?" Steve asked.

Pony sighed. "He's said that we can stay with him. We're headin' up there at the end of the summer."

"Glory," Steve said after a long silence.

"There's somethin' else, too," Pony said. "We've talked about it, and we want you to come with us."

* * *

><p>Any chance that I can get some reviews? :)<p> 


	33. Chapter 33

The months leading up to July first all ran together in Ponyboy's memory. He stopped going to his classes, and he didn't even take his finals. It didn't matter; he wouldn't be transferring into a university anyway. The community college sent letters, and he got straight Fs on his report card, but he got to them and burned them before Darry could see. Charlie had a friend who forged a report card for Pony so that Darry wouldn't ask questions. He started putting in extra hours at the bookstore to save up money. He knew he would need it.

Pony used one of his paychecks from the bookstore to get Leslie a cheap ring so that people would know she was married. He was hoping that it would keep people from staring at her like she was a disgrace, but they stared anyway. It was like they knew somehow. She was too young, or maybe it was the slightly scared look that was constantly in her eyes. Somehow, everyone knew that the baby was an accident, and they used their eyes to tell her just how they felt about it.

They got married at the courthouse the day after Leslie's classes ended. She wore a loose-fitting dress because she was starting to show, but it didn't hide her completely. Steve went with them, and afterwards they got the paperwork they needed for Canada and then went to a diner across the street to get milkshakes. A guy called Leslie fat, and Steve punched him in the face and broke his nose. It was then that Pony really started to think of Steve as a brother. Leslie was convinced that the baby was a boy, and she told Steve that she would name the baby after him. It was intended to be a joke, but Steve seemed so happy about it that neither Pony nor Leslie had the heart to tell him that they'd already decided to name the baby after their two favorite poets. Robert Walter Curtis had a nice ring to it.

At home, Ponyboy and Leslie felt like they were always walking on eggshells. Leslie cooked, cleaned, and paid rent, but she felt like Darry resented her and wished she'd gone to an unwed mother's home, and she cried herself to sleep almost every night because of it. It was all Pony could do to keep himself from doing the same thing. He and Darry had just started to get close again, and suddenly they were being pulled apart. It was killing him. He loved Leslie with all his heart, and he was already crazy about his kid, but he would have given anything to have his brother back. The fact that he wouldn't be around for much longer both excited and terrified him. He could do without the constant tense atmosphere, but he was afraid of what would happen once he finally left Darry behind. He was afraid to even talk to him. The plan was to leave for Canada on August first, and Darry still didn't know. It was a secret that was getting constantly harder to keep.

XXX

So many nights of sleeping alone made Ponyboy forget how much he preferred sharing a bed with someone. He always got cold at night, so having a warm body to curl up next to was nice. It also gave him someone to calm him down if he had a nightmare or just someone to talk to if he couldn't sleep. Leslie was even better than Sodapop in some ways. She didn't have a habit of kicking and stealing all the blankets in her sleep like Soda did. He couldn't help wondering if Sodapop would have approved of Leslie sleeping in his old spot, but he guessed that he would have at least tolerated it.

Ponyboy was almost asleep when Leslie suddenly grabbed his hand and put it on her belly. He was instantly wide-awake.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

"Shh," Leslie said. "You'll wake Darry up."

"Are you alright?" Pony asked again. This time he tried to keep his voice down.

"Fine," she said. "He just kicked. Wanted you to feel it too, but you probably scared him."

Pony smiled and wriggled closer to Leslie. He made sure to keep a hand on her stomach. "Well, I'll just have to wait until he does it again."

Leslie giggled, and Pony kissed her on the cheek. It was quiet for a few minutes, and then Pony sighed heavily.

"Les?"

"Huh?"

"Darry's off tomorrow," Ponyboy said. "I can't keep puttin' it off. I've gotta talk to him about Canada."

"Want me to help?" she asked. "I can tell him everything he needs to know about Alfie if he's worried about you living with a stranger."

Pony shook his head. "No. Actually, I think it's better if you're not here."

"Oh," she said. He could hear the hurt in her voice.

"It could get ugly, Leslie," Pony said. "There'll be some yelling for sure. God knows what else. You don't need that. You're pregnant, you're supposed to be avoiding stress."

She sighed. "I don't want you to have to do it alone. I'm half of this problem, you know."

"A third, if you want to get technical."

"I do. Makes me feel less bad about letting you do this alone."

"Good," he said. "So you and baby go do somethin' for most of the day and leave me to deal with Darry, OK?"

"You're sure you'll be OK by yourself?"

"I'm sure."

"Good luck."

"I'm sure I'll need it."

Leslie sighed. "Better get your rest."

Pony nodded and leaned over Leslie for a kiss. "Love you, babe."

"Love you too."

He had just gotten comfortable when he felt something tap softly on the palm of his hand. He sat up and looked at Leslie. She was smiling from ear to ear.

"He kicked for you," she said.

"That's my boy," he said.

He lay back down and wrapped his arms around Leslie. He held her tight for the rest of the night.

* * *

><p>I know I've been terrible about ... pretty much everything. Review replying, updating, reviewing other stories. I'll get on top of it eventually. I hope.<p>

Reviews = happiness :D


	34. Chapter 34

Ponyboy sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Darry. He had been trying to think of what to say to him all morning, but nothing sounded right. He didn't eat breakfast because he was so nervous, and for a while he thought for sure that he would be sick. He regretted letting Leslie leave. He knew it was for the best, but having her there would have calmed him down.

Finally, Ponyboy sighed and looked over at Darry. "We need to talk."

Darry looked up from the newspaper. "Are you breaking up with me?"

Pony's stomach did a backflip. Darry didn't know how right he was.

"I … no," Pony stammered. "You're my brother. I couldn't do that."

He could see in Darry's eyes that he knew something was up. He tensed. All he wanted to do was run. He could go to Canada without telling Darry. He could leave a note explaining everything. In that moment, anything seemed like a better idea than what he was doing.

"It was a joke, Pony," Darry said. "What'd you want to talk about?"

He knew that it was too late to back out, but he was still frozen. He should have waited to talk until he had planned exactly what he wanted to say. It was like his brain had stopped working. Finally, he blurted out the first thing that came into his mind.

"Leslie," he said. It wasn't exactly what he wanted to talk about, but at least he was headed in the right direction.

Darry cocked an eyebrow, and Pony could tell that he wasn't convinced.

"What about Leslie?" he asked.

"Just … everything," Pony said.

Darry didn't respond, and Pony picked up the conversation again after a minute of silence.

"I just feel like things haven't been the same since … this … happened," Ponyboy said. "And I hate it, Dar. I hate that we don't talk any more."

Darry sighed and shook his head. "Things aren't the same, Pony. I don't think anything turned out like we thought it would."

"No, it didn't," Pony said softly.

"Just seems like we can't ever get a break," Darry said. "First it was mom and dad, and then Sodapop, and now all this mess with you and college and Leslie. It never stops."

"I know," Pony said. His stomach was in an ever-tightening knot. He knew that the news about Canada would hit his brother hard.

"And I don't want you to think that I don't like Leslie. You know I do," Darry said after a pause. "She's a good cook, I don't think the house has ever been cleaner, she pays rent. If you had to get a girl knocked up, I'm glad it was her instead of one of the girls from this side of town."

Pony nodded. "It's keeping me out of the draft, at least."

Darry nodded. "I know it. 'Least that's one thing we don't have to worry about. I just wish it could have been college keeping you out instead of a kid."

"You and me both," Pony replied.

It wasn't entirely true. There was a time when all he wanted was to go to college, and he couldn't even imagine any future that didn't involve majoring in English and running track at Oklahoma. But somewhere along the line, all that had changed. He guessed that it wasn't one single thing, but a combination of events that had changed his mind. Sodapop died, he went to community college instead of Oklahoma, he fell head-over-heels in love, he became best friends with Steve Randle of all people, and he saw college slip out of his reach. Leslie getting pregnant was just the icing on the cake. Maybe he'd make it to a university eventually, but it was the furthest thing from his mind then.

"And you've been reminding me so much of Sodapop lately," Darry said.

Ponyboy jumped. He had forgotten that Darry was there.

"Huh?" he asked.

"Just how he was with Sandy," Darry said. "Glory, he treated her like a princess. Think they would have been just like you and Leslie if they'd gotten married."

Pony nodded and bit down on his bottom lip to try to keep from crying.

"And sometimes I'll look in on ya'll, and you've always got your arm around her just like Soda used to with you," he said. His voice was starting to crack, and Pony brushed a tear away from his eye.

"And then I start to think about what if this war keeps going on," Darry said. "The kid will only keep you out for so long. I'll lose you just like we lost him, and I can't handle that."

Pony took a deep breath. "You don't have to worry about that any more."

Darry looked at him quizzically. There were tears in his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"Darry," Pony said. He paused for a minute to collect his thoughts. "Me, and Leslie, and Steve … we're…" his voice trailed off.

"What?" Darry asked. "What are you three doing?"

"We're going to Canada."

Ponyboy had never felt so small as Darry's eyes bored into him. The ticking from the clock was the only sound. The air conditioner clicked on, a car down the street backfired, and still neither one of them spoke.

"Canada?" Darry finally said.

Pony nodded. "Canada."

"But … why?"

"Leslie's got a brother there," Pony said. "He already said he'll put us up for a while. I don't know, Dar. It's like you said. We don't know how long this war will go on. I can't keep getting Leslie pregnant. And there's no draft in Canada."

Darry just stared at him. Pony kept rambling.

"Steve just wants to go because he can't stand it here. He doesn't want to live with his folks, and he and Evie are done, and everywhere he goes reminds him of Sodapop," Pony said. "But that's not important. Darry, you won't have to worry about losing me for good any more. I'll be safe there. We can write letters. We can even save up for a phone call every now and then. And with it just being you here, maybe you can pick up a few classes at Tulsa. You've always wanted to do that."

Darry just kept staring. It was like he was in a trance.

"It'll all be OK, Darry," Pony said. "It's for the best. Glory, just _say_ something."

Darry slowly stood up from the couch. "I need to take a walk."

Ponyboy was too exhausted to stop him. He just watched as his brother walked out the door.

XXX

"Hey, Darry," Two-Bit said. He turned to Amy. "Can you say hi to your uncle?"

Amy waved and said, "hi."

"Guess that Ponyboy is gonna have one of his own soon enough," Two-Bit said. "Golly, I can't believe it. The kid having a kid of his own. But 'least Amy will have someone to play with."

Darry wasn't responding. Two-Bit cocked an eyebrow and studied him.

"You alright, Muscles? You don't look so good. Want me to bring you a drink?"

Darry nodded and sank down on to Two-Bit's couch. Two-Bit disappeared into the kitchen and then came back with a tumbler of whiskey.

"Somethin' wrong?" he asked.

Darry downed his drink in one gulp and nodded. "Ponyboy."

"Hang on," Two-Bit said. He went into the kitchen, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, and brought it back into the living room. Darry took the bottle from him and filled his glass up to the top.

"OK," Two-Bit said. "What about Ponyboy?"

Darry drained the glass again. "He's leaving."

"What do you mean he's leaving?"

"He's going to Canada with Leslie," Darry said. "They're taking Steve too."

"Oh, God," Two-Bit said.

Darry took another drink. He had stopped using the glass and was just drinking straight out of the bottle.

"Kathy," Two-Bit called toward the bedroom. "I'm gonna' need you to watch Amy for a while."

XXX

Leslie was pacing the floor and nervously rubbing her belly. Steve was sitting by the window, and Ponyboy was waiting by the phone. It was eleven o'clock, and he hadn't heard from Darry since he left for his walk.

"So you don't know when he left?" Steve asked.

Pony shook his head. "No, not exactly. It couldn't have been much after noon. One at the latest. But I looked around the park, went to all the gyms he goes to, and I even went to Buck's. He wasn't there."

"Well, he didn't take the truck so he couldn't have gone far," Leslie said.

"Unless he took a bus," Ponyboy said.

"Why in the hell would he have taken a bus?" Steve said. "No luggage, no nothing. He ain't stupid, Pony. I don't care how upset he is, he wouldn't do that. He probably just called up some old high school friends and he's out drowning his sorrows with them right now. He'll be calling us drunk any minute."

"Doesn't make me feel much better," Pony said. "It's all my fault anyway. I'm the one who got him all upset."

"He needed to know, Pony," Leslie said. "It's not your fault. It's no one's fault."

"I should've done it better," Pony said. "Said it better or somethin'. Maybe I wouldn't have upset him like I did."

"Ponyboy," Steve started. But the screen door opened before he had the chance to finish.

Two-Bit walked in with a barely-conscious Darry leaning heavily on his shoulder.

"Believe I have something that belongs to you," Two-Bit said. "Should I just set him down in the bedroom?"

Pony breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah. In his room is fine."

The bedsprings squeaked as Two-Bit pushed Darry on to his bed. Pony could hear Darry say something and Two-Bit say something back, but he couldn't make out what it was.

"Think someone should stay with him tonight," Two-Bit said. "Make sure he doesn't roll on to his back."

Pony nodded. "I will."

"Well, wish I could stay, but I've gotta get back to Amy and Kathy."

Pony nodded again. "Thanks for bringing him home."

The screen door banged shut as Two-Bit left. An awkward silence fell over the room.

"Guess I'll stay with him tonight," Pony said. "You'll be OK in our room alone, Leslie?"

"I'll be fine," she said.

"Want me to stay in case you need help with him?" Steve asked. "I'm not too crazy about going home anyway."

"Please," Pony said. He sighed heavily. "Well, goodnight."

He crawled into bed next to Darry and opened his book. He wasn't planning on going to sleep for a while. He had to make sure Darry was OK. He felt Darry shift in the bed next to him, and he looked over to make sure that he was still OK. He was surprised to see that he was awake.

"Pony," Darry said.

"Shh," Pony said. "I'm stayin' here tonight. Go to sleep."

"Listen, Pony," Darry said. His speech was clumsy from the alcohol. "I knows you're right about Canada. You go. We'll write. I'll miss you like hell, but I'll miss you more like hell if you're dead. You can't stay in the country."

"OK, OK," Pony said. He pushed Darry's hair off his forehead and wiped the sweat that was forming there away with the corner of the pillowcase. "We'll talk about it more in the morning. When you're sober."

"Gonna miss you," he said again.

"I know," Pony said. "I'm gonna miss you too. But you've gotta go to sleep now."

Darry kept mumbling about how he was going to miss Ponyboy until he fell asleep. Once he was sure he was really out, Pony turned off the light, buried his head in his hands, and cried.

* * *

><p>I was hoping to get this up in time for S.E. Hinton and Ponyboy Curtis's birthday (it's on the same day, July 22), but I'm a few hours late. But if you live in the Pacific Time Zone, I just made it!<p>

I hope this chapter is realistic. It's a tough call deciding how Darry would react to news like this. Feel free to tell me it's terrible if that's what you think.

Reviews make my day! :D


	35. Chapter 35

For the third night in a row, Ponyboy Curtis had given up on sleep. The first night, his last one in Tulsa, he'd stayed up all night talking with Darry. He wanted to have as much time as possible with his brother before he left the country. The following two nights, he saw Darry's tear-stained face every time he closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do to make it go away, and he found it was easier to just get out of bed and read a book or smoke some cigarettes until everyone else woke up. He always lied about how long he had been awake so that everyone else wouldn't worry.

It had been hard having to bury his parents and Sodapop, and almost as bad watching both Johnny and Dally die, but leaving Tulsa was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. The night before, he and Darry sat up talking, sharing old memories about their family and friends, and trying to avoid talking about the fact that they didn't know when they'd see each other again. Darry tried to stay strong while he helped pack the car, but by the time they were about to leave, he was in tears. And as they drove off down the street, Ponyboy watched in the rearview mirror as his brother sank down to his knees, still crying, in their front yard. But he wasn't the only one. Leslie and Steve were visibly shaken, although they managed to keep their eyes dry. Pony, on the other hand, had buried his face in Leslie's hair and cried until they got to the Missouri border. He refused to eat that day, and that night, when Leslie and Steve were passed out in their fleabag motel room in northern Illinois, he got up and wandered around the grounds until the sun came up. They were back on the road not long after that, and they got to Leslie's brother's house about an hour before sunset.

The house was small but clean and in good shape. Leslie's brother explained that he used to have a bunch of roommates who were all draft dodgers like himself. But one thing or another happened to them. Some got married, some decided they wanted to live alone, and one guy even decided to take his chances back in America, so he was left with only one roommate, a guy from California named Eric. He and Alfred seemed nice enough, but Pony didn't talk to them much. Alfred was too busy catching up with Leslie and amazed by the fact that she really was pregnant to pay much attention to him, and Eric and Steve hit it off immediately because they were both good with cars. Pony didn't mind, though. He wasn't in any mood to talk. Part of him wanted to leave the house and take a walk, but part of him was too tired to even think about getting up. So while everyone else was engaged in conversation, he lay on the couch and watched TV. He overheard Alfred asking Leslie what was wrong with him, and she replied with some lie about how he got motion sickness easily so car trips made him out of sorts for a while. He was surprised at how easily Alfred believed it.

That night in bed, Ponyboy tried everything he could to get to sleep. Leslie rubbed his back and sang softly to him until she was too tired to stay awake, so then she lay down next to him and held him tight. She was asleep in minutes, but Pony wasn't so lucky. He tried saying the alphabet backwards and forwards, he recited every piece of poetry he knew in his head, and then started trying to count as high as he could. By the time he reached eight thousand, he knew it was a lost cause. He got out of bed as carefully as he could so he wouldn't wake Leslie, grabbed his cigarettes and notebook off the dresser, and crept out the front door into the cool night air.

XXX

The front door creaked open, and Ponyboy looked up from his notebook to see his wife standing in the doorway.

"Hey," Leslie said. She sat down next to him on the porch and wrapped the blanket she had with her around their shoulders.

"What're you doing out here?" she asked.

Ponyboy shrugged. "I couldn't sleep."

"Aren't you cold?"

"No. It's not bad once you get used to it."

He went back to writing in his notebook. Leslie sat quiet and motionless next to him for a few minutes, and he started to think that she would go back to bed soon. But then she reached over and took the pen out of his hand. He looked up at her.

"What the hell?" he asked. His voice came out sounding angrier than he meant it to, but Leslie didn't seem to mind.

"Pony," she said softly. "Baby, when was the last time you slept?"

"Last night," he lied.

"You forget how well I know you," she replied. "I know it's been longer than that."

He sighed. He was too tired to fight with her. "I dunno. I've probably dozed off a couple times since then, but two nights before we left Tulsa."

"You have to be exhausted."

"I am."

"Come to bed," Leslie said.

He shook his head. "What's the use? I can't sleep."

"Have you been having nightmares?" she asked.

"Not exactly. I just feel bad about leaving Darry," Pony replied. "All I can think about is how we're all each other had, and I just left him. I'm an awful brother, Leslie. I should've just stayed with him. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten drafted."

"But maybe you would have," Leslie said. "You talked about it. You both knew this would be hard, but it's the best thing. At least this way he knows you're safe."

Pony rubbed his eyes. "He's all alone, and it's all my fault."

"He's got friends," Leslie said. "You never know. He could save up money and come visit. You know you two wouldn't have lived in the same house forever. Sooner or later one of you would have moved away."

"Wish it could've been later."

"I know."

Ponyboy rested his head on Leslie's shoulder. "I just feel so alone. And I hate it because he's gotta be feeling the same way."

"Honey," Leslie said. "You've got me and Steve and Alfred, and in just a couple of months you'll have a son. Darry's got Two-Bit and his old friends from school and friends from work he can see. It'll take some getting used to, but neither one of you is alone."

Ponyboy sighed a long, shaking sigh, and Leslie kissed the top of his head.

"It's OK, baby," she soothed. "Everything will be OK."

He let his eyes fall closed as he listened to Leslie's soft, soothing voice. He was suddenly aware of how cold he was, and it wasn't long before he started to feel himself drift.

"Les," he said. "I think I wanna sleep now."

Leslie helped him stand up, led him to the bedroom, and eased him onto the bed. He hadn't realized how soft and warm it was before. Leslie crawled in to the bed next to him, and he snuggled up next to her.

"Goodnight," Leslie whispered. "I love you."

Pony tried to reply, but his brain and his mouth wouldn't cooperate with each other. He was just too tired, and the bed was too comfortable and warm. He would tell Leslie that he loved her in the morning. He shifted his position slightly, and for the first time in days, Ponyboy Curtis slept.

* * *

><p>I'm baa-aack! Sorry to everyone who was waiting on this story. I just moved from Alabama all the way to Michigan, so I was spending as much time as possible with my friends and family. And now that I'm in Michigan I've just been trying to get settled in, so writing has gone on the back burner. But now I'm actually going to do stuff! Update today, and I'll get back on reviewing tomorrow. Maybe there will even be another update!<p>

Reviews make my day! They would be a great welcome back present! :D


	36. Chapter 36

It took Ponyboy a minute to remember where he was when he woke up. The room, the bed, even the sounds of the house were all different from what he was used to, and he had been dreaming about home, which just made him more disoriented. The pounding in his head didn't help things either. Slowly, things started to fall in to place. He wasn't in Tulsa. He was at Leslie's brother's house just outside of Toronto, Canada. Leslie and Steve were the only people he knew there. Darry was back in Oklahoma. He rolled over and found that the spot next to him in the bed was cold and empty. Leslie was already awake. He groaned and pulled the covers tighter around him. He knew it had to be late and he needed to get out of bed, but he was still exhausted and his head was killing him. The last thing he wanted was to go hunting for his wife and some aspirins. But after lying there for a few minutes, silently praying that the pain in his head would subside, he knew what he needed to do. He mentally counted to three, forced himself out of bed, and stumbled out of the bedroom.

He found Leslie sitting alone in the living room and reading a book. He didn't know where the others were, and he didn't care. He was glad that the two of them could be alone.

"Hey," she said once she noticed him. "You're up."

Ponyboy nodded and flopped down on the couch next to her. He groaned and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

"You OK?" she asked.

"Head's killing me," he murmured. "We got any aspirin?"

"Sure Alfred does," she said. "Wait here a minute."

Pony nodded and let his aching head rest against the back of the couch once Leslie stood up. He could hear her fumbling around in the next room, and he winced when she knocked something over and it hit the floor with a crash. Then the sound of running water, and Leslie's footsteps started back into the room.

"There ya' go," she said softly as she pressed the bottle of pills into his hand.

Ponyboy wordlessly swallowed a handful of pills and chased them with the water. Leslie wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a hug.

"You sleep ok?" she asked after a few minutes of gently nuzzling and kissing the top of his head.

"Yeah," he replied. "Wish I hadn't woken up to this headache. How 'bout you."

"Had better," she replied. "Baby woke me up early 'cause he was kicking so much and I couldn't get back to sleep. But I'm fine."

"Mmm," Ponyboy hummed in reply. He had hoped to stay awake and talk with Leslie for a while. But the aspirin was kicking in, and as his headache faded, he had to fight harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

"Go back to sleep," Leslie said softly. "I'll wake you up if something interesting happens."

He yawned and shifted his position slightly. "Sounds good."

He was asleep again in minutes.

XXX

"You're sure he's OK? I mean, he's been real out of it ever since you guys got here."

Ponyboy felt a hand tangle in his hair, and he sighed softly.

"He's fine, Alfred," Leslie replied. "He's just had a rough couple of days."

"So have you and Steve. But Steve's been helping Eric with the car all day like nothing's wrong. And you've been awake and talking at least. Somethin's up with him."

"He actually had something to leave behind," Leslie said. "He's got it worse than me and Steve. But he'll be OK. Just gotta rest up and start adjusting to a new place is all."

"Hope so. Gotta get to know the guy who knocked up my sister sooner or later."

Leslie gently kissed Ponyboy's forehead and gave his shoulders a squeeze. And although she thought he was asleep, Pony got the feeling that she was talking more to him than to Alfred.

"Don't you worry. It'll all be fine."

XXX

He woke up with a start, drenched in a cold sweat and tangled up in the blankets. Next to him, Leslie slept peacefully, unaware of the terror her husband had woken up to. He thought he could calm himself down and go back to sleep without waking her. But his body started the involuntary shaking that he knew so well, the lump in his throat grew, and a tear slid down his face. He choked back a sob and managed to free one of his arms from the blankets.

"L-les," he managed as he shook her. "Leslie wake up."

"Huh?" she said. "Ponyboy?"

She rolled over to face him, and he instantly buried his face in her shirt and sobbed. Leslie knew what was happening and started rubbing his back.

"It's ok, honey," she soothed. "Just a bad dream. It's all over now. You'll be fine."

But it was more than the nightmare this time. He missed Darry and Two-Bit and his job at the bookstore and Tom and Charlie. He was homesick, and he missed his bed and the way the little ray of light from the streetlamp outside leaked through the hole in the blinds. He missed the rattling of the metal table fan on the desk beside his bed. But most of all, he missed his brother. He shouldn't have left him. He and Leslie should have taken their chances back in Tulsa. It would have been worth it. He didn't know why it took him so long to realize that.

"I wanna go home, Leslie," he sobbed. "I want Darry. I … I just wanna go home."

* * *

><p>Wow. OK. Glad it hasn't been over a year since I updated this story...<p>

Truth is, I've just been really writer's blocked on this. I know where I want it to go, I just can't figure how to get it there. But I think I might have an idea now. I didn't really proofread this chapter either. I just wanted to get it written and posted before I lost my nerve. So tell me if stuff looks weird or if you totally hate it or whatever.

I'd love some reviews! :)


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